Case Title: State Ex Rel. Hannah v. Seier

Citation: 654 S.W.2d 894

Docket Number: 

State: missouri

Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Date: 1983-08-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
654 S.W.2d 894 (1983)
STATE ex rel. William J. HANNAH, et al., Relators,
v.
The Honorable A.J. SEIER, Judge, Circuit Court, Thirty-Second Judicial Circuit, Respondent.
No. 64505.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.
August 16, 1983.
Kent W. Fanning, William J. Hannah, D. Eugene Dalton, Jr., St. Charles, for relators.
Donald L. Wolff, Ellyn L. Sternfield, Wolff & Frankel, Clayton, for respondent.
*895 DONNELLY, Judge.
The Honorable A.J. Seier, Circuit Judge of Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, intends to dismiss with prejudice an information which charges Caren Blair with theft. He proposes to dismiss eleven counts on authority of Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S. Ct. 1189, 25 L. Ed. 2d 469 (1970). He proposes to dismiss the remaining counts on authority of a statute of limitation. The dismissal of all counts depends on evidence received by the trial court dehors the information.
The prosecutors sought prohibition in the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, a provisional rule issued and was made absolute in part and quashed in part. We transferred the case from the Court of Appeals and decide the case the same as on original appeal. Mo. Const. art. V, § 10.
In an ordinary proceeding in prohibition, we would note that prohibition is not a writ of right; that its issuance in a given case is addressed to the sound discretion of this Court; and that the chief purpose of the writ is to prevent the lower court from acting without or in excess of its jurisdiction. See State ex rel. Eggers v. Enright, 609 S.W.2d 381 (Mo. banc 1980). Is there any reason why the same standards should not be applied in this case? In our view, there is. If respondent Seier has jurisdiction of the cause pending in his court (and he does), his decision to dismiss the information, right or wrong, should not be subjected to appellate review.
The parties agree that in the circumstances of this case the State would have no right of appeal from a dismissal of the information. See §§ 547.200 and 547.210, RSMo 1978; State v. Brooks, 372 S.W.2d 83 (Mo.1963); and State v. Perou, 428 S.W.2d 561 (Mo.1968). But, relators ask that we determine, in prohibition, whether respondent was right or wrong on the merits.
An analogy can be made to habeas corpus. In State ex rel. Hiett v. Simmons, 112 Mo.App. 535, 538, 539, 87 S.W. 35, 36 (1905), the St. Louis Court of Appeals had before it, on certiorari directed to the county court of Texas County, the decision of a judge of said court discharging a prisoner on writ of habeas corpus. It was urged that the Texas County court had no authority to discharge the prisoner. The St. Louis Court of Appeals addressed the assertion as follows:
In our view, the Simmons language, supra, is appropriate in this prohibition proceeding. The decision of the trial court of Cape Girardeau County to dismiss the information, it being a tribunal having jurisdiction of the cause, must be "allowed to stand whether right or wrong."
We anticipate that this opinion may be of minimal precedential value. House Bill No. 279 was enacted in the First Regular Session of the 82nd General Assembly. It repeals §§ 547.200 and 547.230, RSMo 1978, and enacts in lieu thereof two new sections which purport to expand enormously the right of the State of Missouri to appeal in criminal cases.
The provisional rule in prohibition is ordered quashed.
GUNN, J., LOWENSTEIN, Special Judge, and MORGAN, Senior Judge, concur.
BILLINGS, J., concurs in separate opinion filed.
BLACKMAR, J., concurs in result in separate opinion filed.
RENDLEN, C.J., dissents.
WELLIVER and HIGGINS, JJ., not sitting.
BILLINGS, Judge, concurring.
I concur in the principal opinion, reserving for another day the soundness of State ex rel. Hiett v. Simmons, 112 Mo.App. 535, 87 S.W. 35 (1905).
I readily agree that Corcoran and Martin should no longer be followed. The State, in this proceeding, as in Corcoran and Martin, seeks to enlist our aid in circumventing the existing law of no right of appeal by the vehicle of an extraordinary writ.
In my view we should not continue to countenance piecemeal appeals by the use and abuse of the extraordinary writs of prohibition and mandamus under the guise of "superintending control"  whatever that term means. And, we should not hesitate to send a strong and clear signal that a trial court with jurisdiction has the ability to commit error and any such error, if the need arises, will be reviewed upon appeal.
The law review article by Professor Tuchler clearly demonstrates the abuse of the extraordinary writs of prohibition and mandamus  "prodamus" or "mandhibition". In his introductory remarks, the author writes:
40 Mo.L.Rev. at 577 (emphasis added).
While it is true that the appellate courts of this State end up denying the vast majority of petitions for such writs, the fact remains that an inordinate amount of judicial *897 time is consumed in considering the petitions,[1] trials are further delayed, the expense of litigation is increased, and the majority of alleged errors are "curable by subsequent events at trial or by appeal." 40 Mo.L.Rev. at 625.
BLACKMAR, Judge, concurring in result.
For me it is sufficient that the circuit judge heard all the evidence that both parties cared to offer and decided on the basis of this evidence some counts were barred by limitation, and others by collateral estoppel pursuant to Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S. Ct. 1189, 25 L. Ed. 2d 469 (1970). The prosecuting attorney argues that the judge did not have all the facts before him, but stubbornly disclaims any responsibility for supplying the full trial transcript, and did not even make an offer of proof as to what the missing evidence might show. The circuit court had jurisdiction to decide the points presented. The relators argue, in essence, that his final order, terminating proceedings on these counts, was wrong, but the governing statutes, §§ 547.200 and 547.230, RSMo 1978, do not permit an appeal by the state from the order dismissing the counts on the grounds assigned. The policy against appeals would be circumvented if review by writ of prohibition were to be allowed under these circumstances.
As the principal opinion points out, the effect of H.B. 279, adopted at the last session of the General Assembly, is to expand the state's right of appeal in criminal cases far beyond what it has been in the past. Because of the passage of this bill, I see no reason to discuss the habeas corpus cases mentioned in the principal opinion, or to express approval or disapproval of earlier cases in which prohibition has issued to prevent the termination of criminal proceedings, as Judge Billings does in his concurring opinion. As my concurring opinion in State ex rel. Morasch v. Kimberlin, 654 S.W.2d 889 (Mo. banc 1983), decided this day, shows, I do not believe that we should decide more than is necessary in writ cases. This is all the more so when, because of intervening statutory changes, our holding will provide little guidance.
I agree that the provisional rule in prohibition should be quashed.
[1]  In 1975 a total of 74 petitions for prohibition or mandamus were filed in this Court. In 1982 the number of such petitions had increased to 241.