Title: State v. Davis
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC91368
State: Missouri
Issuer: Missouri Supreme Court
Date: August 30, 2011

SUPREME COURT OF MISSOURI 
en banc 
 
 
STATE OF MISSOURI, 
 
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
Appellant, 
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
No. SC91368 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
MELVIN RAY DAVIS,   
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
 
 
 
Respondent.  
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF GREENE COUNTY 
The Honorable Jason R. Brown, Judge 
 
Opinion issued August 30, 2011 
 
The state filed a felony complaint charging Melvin Ray Davis, a registered 
sex offender, with one count of violating section 566.150,1 for knowingly being 
present within 500 feet of a public park that contains playground equipment or a 
public swimming pool.  He moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that 
section 566.150 was unconstitutional as applied to him because it violated the 
prohibition against retrospective laws in article I, section 15 of the Missouri 
Constitution.  The trial court dismissed the complaint against Mr. Davis.   
The state appeals.  The state claims that the trial court erred in dismissing 
the complaint because the prohibition against retrospective laws applies only to 
                                             
 
1 All statutory citations are to RSMo Supp. 2010 unless otherwise indicated. 
 
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civil statutes and not to criminal statutes.  It further asserts that because section 
566.150 is criminal in nature, this section cannot be retrospective in operation.  
Because this issue is raised for the first time on appeal, it is not preserved for 
appellate review.  The trial court’s judgment is affirmed.   
Factual and Procedural Background 
On May 17, 1983, Mr. Davis pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse, 
pursuant to section 566.100, RSMo 1978.  Due to this conviction, the Sexual 
Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. § 16913 (2006), 
required Mr. Davis to register as a sex offender.2  In 2009, Missouri’s legislature 
enacted section 566.150, which makes it a crime for a registered sex offender to 
“knowingly be present in or loiter within five hundred feet of any real property 
comprising any public park with playground equipment or a public swimming 
pool.”  On June 17, 2010, a park ranger apprehended Mr. Davis and another man 
for drinking alcohol in a city park in violation of a Springfield municipal 
 
2  Section 589.400 of Missouri’s Sex Offender Registration Act requires “[a]ny 
person who, since July 1, 1979, has been or is hereafter convicted of ... a felony 
offense of chapter 566” to register with the chief law enforcement officer of the 
county of the offender’s residence.  In Doe v. Keathley, 290 S.W.3d 719, 720 (Mo. 
banc 2009), this Court held that while article I, section 13 of the Missouri 
Constitution bars Missouri from enacting laws retroactive in their operation, it 
does not bar compliance with federal laws such as SORNA and SORNA’s 
requirement that “‘[a] sex offender shall register ... in each jurisdiction where the 
offender resides.’  42 U.S.C. section 16913. … SORNA imposes an independent 
obligation requiring respondents to register as sex offenders in Missouri.  The 
independent registration requirement under SORNA operates irrespective of any 
allegedly retrospective state law that has been enacted and may be subject to the 
article I, section 13 ban on the enactment of retrospective state laws.”  Id.    
 
ordinance.  After the park ranger ran the men’s names through local law 
enforcement communication systems, he arrested Mr. Davis, a registered sex 
offender, for knowingly being present within 500 feet of Grant Beach Park, a 
public park that contains playground equipment and a public swimming pool.   
In August 2010, the state filed a felony complaint against Mr. Davis 
charging him with violating section 566.150, which is a class D felony.  Mr. Davis 
moved to dismiss the complaint against him.  The motion to dismiss alleged that 
section 566.150 was unconstitutional as applied to him because it violates 
Missouri’s ban on retrospective laws found in article I, section 13 of the Missouri 
Constitution.  He asserted that because he was convicted of sexual abuse in 1983 
and section 566.150 was not enacted until August 2009, 26 years after Mr. Davis’s 
original guilty plea, section 566.150 is retrospective as applied to him.  Mr. Davis 
argued that, under the holding of F.R. v. St. Charles County Sheriff's Dept., 301 
S.W.3d 56 (Mo. banc 2010), section 566.150 was unconstitutional because it 
imposed a new obligation, duty, or disability on him solely based on his earlier 
sexual abuse conviction. 
The state argued that section 566.150 was not retrospective and attempted 
to distinguish Mr. Davis’ case from F.R. by saying section 566.150 did not require 
Mr. Davis to carry out any affirmative act as was the case in F.R.  The circuit court 
dismissed the complaint against Mr. Davis without prejudice, holding that section 
566.150 was unconstitutional as applied to Mr. Davis.  The circuit court found that 
 
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section 566.150 placed a new disability on Mr. Davis based on a prior conviction 
and, therefore, that statute was unconstitutionally retrospective in operation.  
The state appeals.  Because the appeal involves the constitutional validity 
of section 566.150, this Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction.3  MO. CONST. 
art. V, sec. 3.   
Discussion  
 
 
In its sole claim of error, the state asserts that the trial court erred in finding 
that section 566.150 was unconstitutional as applied to Mr. Davis because the 
Missouri constitutional prohibition against retrospective laws in art. I, sec. 13 
applies only to civil statutes and section 566.150 is criminal in nature.  The state 
concedes that it did not raise this issue at trial.  “An issue that was never presented 
to or decided by the trial court is not preserved for appellate review.”  Smith v. 
Shaw, 159 S.W.3d 830, 835 (Mo. banc 2005) (quoting State ex rel. Nixon v. 
American Tobacco Co., 34 S.W.3d 122, 129 (Mo. banc 2000)).   
 
Because an appellate court is not a forum in which new points will 
be considered, but is merely a court of review to determine whether 
the rulings of the trial court, as there presented, were correct, a party 
seeking the correction of error must stand or fall on the record made 
in the trial court, thus it follows that only those objections or grounds 
of objection which were urged in the trial court, without change and 
without addition, will be considered on appeal.   
 
                                             
 
3 Due to the trial court’s reasoning that the statute was unconstitutional as applied 
to Mr. Davis, the dismissal without prejudice had the practical effect of 
terminating the litigation and constituted a final and appealable judgment.  State v. 
Brown, 140 S.W.3d 51, 53 (Mo. banc 2004); State v. Smothers, 297 S.W.3d 626, 
630-31 (Mo. App. 2009).   
 
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State v. Thomas, 969 S.W.2d 354, 355 (Mo. App. 1998) (quoting State ex rel. 
Selby v. Day, 929 S.W.2d 286, 288 (Mo. App. 1996).  Accordingly, an appellate 
court generally will not find, absent plain error, that a lower court erred on an 
issue that was not put before it to decide.4  See American Tobacco Co., 34 S.W.3d 
at 129; Zundel v. Bommarito, 778 S.W.2d 954, 957 (Mo. App. 1989). 
 
The trial court’s judgment is affirmed.          
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_________________________________  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   PATRICIA BRECKENRIDGE, JUDGE 
 
Teitelman, C.J., Russell,  
Fischer, Stith and Price, JJ., 
and Wolff, Sr.J., concur. 
 
 
 
 
 
4 The state does not claim plain error in this case.