State v. Walton
| Decision Date | 17 December 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 49171,49171 |
| Citation | 703 S.W.2d 540 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. David Earl WALTON, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Henry Robertson, St. Louis, for appellant.
William L. Webster, Carrie Francke, Jefferson City, for respondent.
Appeal from jury convictions for robbery in the first degree, tampering in the first degree, and armed criminal action, for which defendant was sentenced by the court, as a prior and persistent offender, to fifteen years' imprisonment on the robbery count, a concurrent sentence of ten years' imprisonment on the tampering count, and a consecutive term of five years' imprisonment for armed criminal action. We affirm.
As sufficiency of the evidence is not challenged, the facts may be stated briefly. On January 2, 1984, at approximately 1:45 p.m., the victim parked his car in the parking lot of a drug store at the intersection of Manchester and McCausland in the City of St. Louis. He exited and locked the car, and prepared to cross Manchester Road. As he did so, a black male, later identified as co-defendant Sidney Hamilton, came out of a bus shelter, took a gun out of a paper bag, and ordered victim to surrender his money and car keys. Another black male, later identified as defendant, then left the shelter, took the keys, and started victim's car. Victim gave his money to Hamilton as ordered, but refused an order to enter the car and walked away. He observed defendant and Hamilton drive his car to the East on Manchester, then called the police.
He described the car and the two men to the police dispatcher, who apparently put out a bulletin on the police radio concerning the crime. Two police officers spotted a car matching the description given by defendant, being driven by two black males who also matched the description given by defendant, in the area of Kingshighway and Oakland. The car was stopped and the occupants were arrested. Victim was taken to the scene of the arrest, where he identified the two men as his assailants. A Swiss army knife usually kept in the glove department of victim's car, money and a gun were found on the occupants upon their arrest.
Defendant first challenges the composition of the jury panel, claiming two venirepersons should have been stricken for cause because of their relationships with police officers. Venireperson Scheetz was the daughter of a Lieutenant Colonel in the St. Louis City police force. Two of her brothers, one a detective and another an officer, were also on that force. Venireperson Moore was the wife of a sergeant on the St. Louis City Police force who was in charge of the Evidence Technician Unit. She had heard of one officer who testified at the trial, as a person who worked for her husband, and she had met another testifying officer through the Police Association. Both venirepersons were challenged for cause, but the challenges were overruled by the trial court.
A defendant is entitled to a fully qualified panel of potential jurors from which to exercise his peremptory challenges. But, a trial court is vested with considerable discretion in determining the qualifications of a potential juror, and a ruling on a challenge for cause will only be disturbed upon a showing of a clear abuse of discretion. State v. Leipus, 675 S.W.2d 896, 898[1-3] (Mo.App.1984). No such abuse is shown here.
A relationship with police officers is not sufficient, standing alone, to disqualify a juror. State v. Hemphill, 669 S.W.2d 633, 635 (Mo.App.1984). The answers given by the challenged venirepersons on voir dire leave little doubt as to their qualifications to be jurors. There was no initial equivocation on the matter of whether they would consider testimony by police officers as superior to or more trustworthy than evidence or testimony by non-police officers. Compare, e.g. State v. Miller, 655 S.W.2d 797, 798-99 (Mo.App.1983). Both venirepersons denied contact with their relatives concerning police work. Moore stated she and her husband agreed he would not tell her about his work unless there was something amusing Scheetz testified she did not get a lot of "war stories" from her brothers (who did not live at home) or her father.
More importantly, there was no indication either venireperson would believe a police officer's testimony simply because he was an officer. Scheetz stated she could be fair to both sides in the case, and nothing in the record suggests the contrary. Moore indicated she would automatically believe her husband, but not other officers; she succinctly stated "I'm married to a policeman, but I'm not married to the police department." No abuse of the trial court's discretion appears in this matter.
Defendant also asserts the trial court erred in overruling defendant's motion to declare a mistrial and empanel a new jury due to the prosecution's use of its peremptory challenges to remove the black members of the venire panel, claiming this violated his rights under the Sixth Amendment to a jury selected from a fair cross-section of the community. He argues for the adoption of the approach contained in such cases as Commonwealth v. Soares, 387 N.E.2d 499 (Mass.1979) and People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal.3d 258, 583 P.2d 748, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890 (1978). Missouri rejects this approach, State v. Sims, 639 S.W.2d 105, 108-09 (Mo.App.1982), and requires the claimant to show...
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...13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965) (Swain ), of showing systematic exclusion in violation of the equal protection clause. State v. Walton, 703 S.W.2d 540, 542 (Mo.Ct.App.1985) (Walton ). The Missouri Supreme Court denied Walton's motion to transfer on February 18, 1986. On April 30, 1986, the United Sta......
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