Opinion ID: 2460227
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Undisclosed/ Inflammatory Statements

Text: Johnston alleges unfair surprise by and resulting harm from the prosecutor's failure to disclose a statement by Michael Federhofer. Federhofer testified at trial that [Johnston told me] [i]f I called the police he'd kill me too. The statement was never reduced to writing and was never discovered in a deposition. After consulting the depositions, the trial court found that Federhofer made a spontaneous voluntary answer to a previously unsolicited question made to him for ... information that apparently was not discovered before from either side.... A discovery violation under Rule 25.03 depends on the State's failure to disclose written or recorded statements of witnesses and summaries of witnesses' oral statements. Rule 25.04(a) requires the state, upon motion, to disclose material and information not covered by Rule 25.03. These rules do not require the State to disclose what it does not have. Johnston relies on State v. Harrington, 534 S.W.2d 44 (Mo. banc 1976). In Harrington , the state failed to deliver a copy of the defendant's statement to an FBI agent. This Court noted that discovery is designed to avoid surprise. `Simple justice requires that a defendant be permitted to prepare to meet what thus looms as a critical element of the case against him.' Id. at 47, quoting State v. Scott, 479 S.W.2d 438, 442 (Mo. banc 1972). As in Harrington , the critical element relational lies at the heart of State v. Whitfield, 837 S.W.2d 503, 507 (Mo. banc 1992), another case in which Johnston seeks solace. In Whitfield , this Court reversed a first-degree, death penalty conviction where the state failed to endorse its firearms expert as a witness and failed to disclose that a coat that contained bullet holes and was owned by a wounded witness would be introduced into evidence. The defense had decided to attack that wounded witness as the center of its strategy. The coat, however, corroborated the witness's credibility and the accuracy of her testimony and severely injured the defendant's theory of the case. The surprise in Harrington , Scott and Whitfield was the product of the state's withholding information that it possessed, that was critical to the case and that the defense would have had an opportunity to prepare to attack or blunt its influence had it been disclosed. This case is distinguishable from Harrington , Scott and Whitfield . First, the trial court considered Johnston's objection and determined that the State did not have knowledge of the eleven-year-old Federhofer's statement prior to his trial testimony. The statement was not undisclosed; it was undiscovered. This ends the inquiry. Johnston had the opportunity to cross-examine Federhofer about his statement and seek a continuance to consider strategy when faced with its discovery during trial. His brief before this Court shows that he has not yet discovered an argument or evidence in the years of reflection since the trial that would show what Johnston would have been able to do to negate the statement had he learned of it prior to trial. Claims of surprise requiring a mistrial must be supported by some reasoned basis for the existence of actual prejudice. Johnston offers none.
Johnston also complains that emergency medical technician James Motlik testified that he remembered the emergency call [b]ecause it was the most brutal beating [he had] ever seen, in twenty-five years of ambulance work. According to Johnston, the statement prejudiced him and required a mistrial. Motlik's recollection attempted to explain the clarity of his memory of the events on the night of Nancy Johnston's murder more than two years after the fact. The trial court found that the statement was unsolicited. Unsolicited statements that are brief and limited in substance do not amount to reversible error in the absence of evidence that the prosecutor intentionally tried to inject unfair prejudice into the trial. See State v. Kalagian, 833 S.W.2d 431, 435 (Mo.App. 1992); State v. Masterson, 733 S.W.2d 40, 42 (Mo.App.1987). There was no evidence here that the prosecutor intentionally tried to inject this statement into the guilt phase of the trial. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to grant a mistrial.