State v. Vrba
| Decision Date | 11 January 2022 |
| Docket Number | No. SD 36916,SD 36916 |
| Citation | 638 S.W.3d 604 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Andrew James VRBA, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
ROSEMARY E. PERCIVAL, Kansas City, Mo, for Appellant.
MICHEL A. TRAPASSO, Jefferson City, Mo, for Respondent.
Andrew James Vrba ("Defendant") appeals his conviction for first-degree murder and the trial court's statutorily-mandated sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of probation or parole ("LWOP"). See section 565.020.1 In two points, Defendant, 18 years old at the time of the murder, claims the trial court: (1) erred in sentencing him to LWOP because the sentence was unconstitutional as fundamentally unfair and disproportionate, both facially and as applied to Defendant; and (2) abused its discretion in denying his motion for sanctions against the State for failing to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence. Finding no merit in either claim, we affirm.2
In exchange for Defendant waiving his right to a jury trial, the State did not seek the death penalty.
Defendant's victim ("Victim") was a 17-year-old boy that Defendant had been friends with for about a year. On September 9, 2017, Victim's sister contacted the police to let them know that her brother was missing. In the course of investigating that report, the police spoke with Defendant's girlfriend, Isis, and that conversation led officers to interview Defendant on September 20th. During that interview, Defendant quickly admitted that he had killed Victim on September 3rd. Defendant claimed that Victim's girlfriend, Brianna, told Defendant to kill Victim because Victim had raped her.
Defendant told the officers that he had thought about various ways to kill Victim, including the use of poison, but Defendant ultimately ended up stabbing Victim two times with a knife. When Victim was dead, Defendant sent a text message to Brianna that said, "It's done." Brianna and Isis then joined Defendant, and they burned Victim's body in the backyard.
The trial court found Defendant guilty of first-degree murder and imposed the mandatory sentence of LWOP.
All of these arguments have been rejected in decisions that this court -- just as the trial court -- is required to follow.
All statutes are presumed constitutional. Lopez-Matias v. State , 504 S.W.3d 716, 718 (Mo. banc 2016). "Challenges to the constitutional validity of a state statute are subject to de novo review." State v. Shanklin , 534 S.W.3d 240, 241 (Mo. banc 2017). This Court will not declare a statute unconstitutional unless it clearly and unambiguously contravenes a constitutional provision. State v. Pribble , 285 S.W.3d 310, 313 (Mo. banc 2009).
State v. Barnett , 598 S.W.3d 127, 129 (Mo. banc 2020).
Section 565.020.2 provides that first-degree murder shall be punished by either death or LWOP. Both the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Missouri have repeatedly held that these mandatory penalties are constitutional when applied to offenders who, like Defendant, were at least 18 years old at the time their murders were committed. State v. Barnett , 598 S.W.3d 127, 132 (Mo. banc 2020) ; Roper v. Simmons , 543 U.S. 551, 560, 574, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) ; Graham v. Florida , 560 U.S. 48, 74-75, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010) ; and Miller v. Alabama , 567 U.S. 460, 470, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012).
Point 1 is denied.
We disagree.
On September 25, 2017, four days after Defendant was charged with Victim's murder, the trial court granted Defendant's motion to preserve evidence and investigatory notes, and it ordered the prosecutor to inform any and all law-enforcement officials of their duty to comply with the order. The State agreed to the entry of the order, but it also noted that:
if law enforcement have [sic] already done that and destroyed [evidence or notes], I can't control that at this point. Just want to put that on the record. I have no problem informing and telling all officers that's to be done, but at this point, this is several days old, I just can't promise that they've complied with it for a fact.
Claiming that the State had violated the trial court's order, Defendant filed a motion for sanctions prior to trial. The trial court took the motion with the case.
During the trial, the law enforcement officials involved in the conduct at issue testified that the cell phones identified by Defendant were not destroyed intentionally and the destruction of investigatory notes occurred before the order to preserve them was entered. The officers also testified that the documents Defendant had provided to the police department that related to Victim had already been returned to Victim's family.
After hearing that evidence, the trial court denied the motion for sanctions.
We review the trial court's imposition of discovery sanctions for an abuse of discretion. Trotter v. Distler , 260 S.W.3d 913, 915 (Mo. App. E.D. 2008). An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court's ruling "is clearly against the logic of the circumstances then before the court and is so arbitrary and unreasonable as to shock the sense of justice and indicate a lack of careful consideration." Id. (internal quotation omitted).
Delacroix v. Doncasters, Inc. , 407 S.W.3d 13, 34 (Mo. App. E.D. 2013).
Defendant does not claim that the unpreserved items were exculpatory, only that they were "potentially exculpatory[.]"
A defendant's right to due process is violated any time "the State suppresses or fails to disclose material exculpatory evidence." Illinois v. Fisher , 540 U.S. 544, 547, 124 S.Ct. 1200, 157 L.Ed.2d 1060 (2004) (...
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