1 STATE OF MISSOURI, ) ) Plaintiff

- Respondent , ) ) vs. ) No. SD3 6 684 ) MATTHEW AARON JACKSON , ) Filed : June 1 0, 2021 ) Defendant

- Appellant

. )
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF BARRY COUNTY
Honorable Jack A. L. Goodman , Circuit Ju dge Before Rahmeyer, P.J., Bates, J., and Francis, Jr., J.
AFFIRMED
PER CURIAM. Mat t hew Aaron Jackson (“Appellant”) appeals his conviction for
first

- degree murder and armed criminal action. In one point, A ppellant contends that the
S tate failed in its burden to prove the lack of self

- defense . We affirm the trial court’s judgment. There is no dispute that Appellant killed Steven Chupp (“Victim”) with a knife in the backyard of a mutual friend. The issue is whether the State proved a lack of self

defense beyond a reasonable doubt. The majority of facts leading to Victim’s death are2 not disputed. Appellant was assisting the mutual friend get her house ready for an appraisal. When Appellant saw V ictim drive by he retreated to the b ackyard with a pocket knife in the lock ed position. Victim knocked on the homeowner’s door, came into her house, and asked questions about Appellant. The homeowner stated that V ictim seemed very angry and jealous and appeared to have been drinking

. V ict im asked if the
homeowner had heard that Appellant was with Victim’s girlfriend while Victim was out of town. The homeowner responded that she thought A ppellant and the girlfriend were ju st friends and that Appellant “ was driving her vehicle because he di d n’ t have wheels. ”
V

ictim responded that “he was going to get him ” and went around the side of the house to
the back. The mutual friend heard shouting from the backyard. Thus, the evidence clearly indicated that V ictim was the initial aggressor.
Once a defendant has injected the issue of self

- defense into the case, the burden
shift s to the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the absence of self

- defense

. State

v

. Henderson , 311 S.W.3d 411, 413 (Mo.App. W.D. 2010). “ A person is entitled to acquitt al as a matter of law on the basis of self

- defense only if there is undisputed and uncontradicted evidence clearly establishing self

- defense. ” State v
. Dulaney , 989 S.W

. 2d 648, 651 (Mo

. App

. W.D

. 1999). “ In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, this
Court’s review is limited to whether the State has introduced sufficient evidence for any reasonable juror to have been convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. ” State v.
Bateman , 318 S.W.3d 681, 686

- 87 (Mo

. banc 2010) (internal quotations and citati on omitted )

. Th is Court does not act as a super juror with veto powers, but gives great
deference to t he trier of fact

. Id
. at 687

. On review, th is Court accepts as true all of the
evidence favorable to the S tate, including all favorable inferences draw n from the3 evidence , and disregards all evidence and inferences to the contrary. Id. With this standard of review in mind, we must reject the testimony contrary to the verdict given by Appellant as to the events leading up to the stabbing of V ictim. Tha t includes everything that occurred in the backyard between Appellant and Victim. Appellant does not and did not at the time of the incident deny that he was the one who used the knife against V ictim. He was cooperative with the police, told them where t he knife was, and admitted to stabbing Victim. From the beginning of his interview, Appellant claimed to have been attacked and claimed self

- defense. Appellant did not run from the scene to evade responsibility. He hid in the woods until law enforcement and first responders appeared. He openly admitted to using the knife and immediately explained that he had been attacked

. Appellant also exhibited wounds on his face. His own wounds and the actions of Victim further support Appellant’s self

- defense cla im. Because the burden shifted to the State and Appellant challenges the sufficiency
of the evidence on his claim of self

- defense, we look to the evidence which t he State
claims i s sufficient evidence support ing the finding that Appellant did not act in self

defense. Specifically , the State relies upon the testimony of Jonathon Brannan, someone who was in jail at the same time as Appellant. Brann a n testified : Q. Did he at any point mention, he being [Appellant], . . . mention that he had a prior confro ntation with [Victim]? A. Yes. [Appellant] stated that there was a physical altercation between him and [Victim] that resulted in [Appellant] having his jaw broken. [ 1 ]

. . . . A

. [The incident at issue] was at a mutual acquaintance’s home. I guess a fri end that they had both shared. That [Appellant] shared along

1 Appellant sought medical treatment after this pr ior altercation and an x

- ray showed that he had trauma to the back of his head but that his jaw was not broken.4 with [Victim]. Q. When he was discussing the matter of this mutual acquaintance’s home, how would you describe his demeanor? How was his persona to you - presented to you? A. Um, he was alway s cautious, but almost callous, almost kind of hardened. Q. Did he make any statements as to how he felt about the event after the event?

. . . . A. On one occasion [Appellant] stated that, um, he was glad that [Victim] was deceased. That even his p arents thought that he was a piece of shit, excuse my language. Um, that the world was a better place without him. He made a comment that his only regret about [Victim] dying was that his little boy would grow up without a father. I took that

- I assumed t hat [Victim] had a son. He made a statement that the best thing that was going to come out of this was that he lived in Arkansas and after he was acquitted on self

defense that he could go to Arkansas and get a medical marijuana card and he stated that was the best thing to come out of this is because he could claim post

- traumatic stress and receive a medical marijuana card. Clearly , many of these statements by Brannan have nothing to do with whether Appellant acted in self

- defense at the time of the inci dent. Appellant had been a friend of
Victim ; he had been assaulted by Victim about a month prior to this incident, causing Appellant to suffer serious injuries to his jaw. Specifically, Appellant’s statement that he was glad that Victim was deceased and that the only regret he had was that Victim’s son
would grow up without a father do not support an inference that Appellant did not act in
self

- defense. They only reflect his feelings toward Victim after the incident. Brannan’s
additional statements that Appellant was cautious, almost callous, and hardened a re not
statement s concerning an act of self

- defense. Likewise , Appellant’s disparagement of Victim that the world was a better place without him and that even Victim’s parents recognized his worthless ness are not in any way related to Appellant’s claim of self

defense. Even if these above statements after the fact as provided by Brannan are5 assumed to be true, they do not provide sufficient evidence that Appellant did not act in
self

- defense at the ti me of the offense. Additionally, there was evidence that Victim suffered wounds on his right hand
and arm that c ould be called “defensive wounds,” meaning injuries to the extremities caused during a stabbing. It was clear that Appellant was injured in the face, ear and forearm, suggesting that a fight had indeed oc curred. 2 Th e s e fact s alone do not provide sufficient evidence that Appellant was not acting in self

- defense; however, the jury could have inferred that Appellant at some point was the aggressor in the fight

. The evidence and inferences that provide sufficient evidence include s the following additional testimony by Brannan : Q. Did [Appellant] at some point tell you what had happened, what he had done to [Victim]? A. That they were at this mutu al acquaintance’s home and that [Appellant] was alerted that [Victim] may be on his way or had come over later that evening and he made a statement that if he did he knew he would kill [Victim] that night. Q. Did he say in what manner he was going to do t hat? A. No, he did not. Not at that time. Later on he disclosed that when [Victim] did show up I don’t know I guess a verbal altercation had occurred. [Appellant] left the house when he did he had a Gerber locked

blade knife on him. He opened the knife a nd put it in a locked position and stuck it in his back pocket and left the house. He told me that when [Victim] came out afterwards he turned around and stabbed [Victim]. He said he couldn’t recall if it was three or four times. He said he remembered s tabbing him two or three times in the upper abdomen and once in the side. And then he said that he, um, dropped the knife and made a bee

- line for like the brush or tree line and stayed in there until first responders showed up which he said was quite a len gthy time.

2 The State argued at trial that the fact there was more blood on Appellant’s pants than his sweatshirt showed Appellant was standing over Vict im when he was stabbed. Although a responding officer testified there was “more . . . blood on the pants th [a] n there was on the sweatshirt,” there was no expert testimony regarding the significance of the blood splatters or patterns. In fact, Victim’s c lothes were thrown in the garbage. Appellant was booked in the jail hours after the incident. It is certainly a reasonable assumption that the blood on his clothes continued to spread downward and not upward. There was no testimony how Appellant’s clothe s had been gathered after the incident. No reasonable inference can be taken from the blood on the clothing.6 The statement that once Appellant knew Victim “may be on his way or had come over later” could support an inference that Appellant planned to kill Victim if he showed up at the friend’s house. Likewise, that Appellant “turned around and stabb ed” Victim in isolation may indicate the lack of self

- defense. Although this evidence is slight to support a lack of self

- defense we are constrained to conclude that the evidence and the inferences from the evidence provide
sufficient evidence support in g a lack of self

- defense. We draw this conclusion partly based on the Supreme Court ’s decision in State v. Jackson , 433 S.W.3d 390 (Mo. banc 2014)

. Although the holding in the case was whether a lesser included offense instruction should have been given, the case has been cited for the proposition that : No matter how strong, airtight, inescapable, or even absolutely certain the evidence and inferences in support of the differential element may seem to judges and lawyers, no evidence ever proves an element of a criminal case until all 12 jurors believe it, and no inference ever is drawn in a criminal case until all 12 jurors draw it.

. . . . The question of whether the evidence is sufficient (i.e., whether a jury may find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt) is a proper question for trial and appellate courts, but the question of what the jury must find has no place in a criminal trial or appeal.
Id. at 399

- 400 , 404 (emphasis in original)

. This case was properly submitted to the jury with a self

- defense i nstruction. The jury chose to disregard the evidence adduced by Appellant that he acted in self

- defense. The jury chose to accept the evidence presented by the State. We question , after Jackson , whether this Court has the authority to grant a judgment o f acquittal based on the failure of the State to provide sufficient evidence of the lack of self

- defense after the jury renders7 a verdict . I f we do have that authority , we must now hold that the evidence at trial met the bare requirements of presenting su fficient evidence to support a lack of self

- defense. In other words the jury, and the jury alone, decided that the State had proven that Appellant had not acted in self

- defense. The judgment is affirmed.