Court Opinion

ID: 9593454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:22:33.100164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:43.060344
License: Public Domain

Abbott, J.,
dissenting: My disagreement with the majority centers around Dr. Eckert’s testimony concerning the victim’s stomach contents and his opinion of how long the victim had been dead before the autopsy.
The crucial issue in this K.S.A. 60-1507 hearing is whether the victim ate her last meal at the Brookville Hotel on Friday evening, May 28, 1982. The evidence is uncontroverted that the victim died between one and two hours after eating her last meal. The time of death was crucial to the State because the defendant had an alibi if death did not occur within a few hours after the defendant took the victim to the Brookville Hotel for dinner.
When the defendant was charged, the affidavit for a warrant states that Dr. Eckert performed an autopsy. The affidavit reported Dr. Eckert’s findings as follows: “The stomach contents showed fried chicken, potatoes and com. From the stage of the digestive process, time of death was placed at less than one hour after the last meal. The stomach contents [are] consistent with the standard meal served at the Brookville Hotel.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In affirming Taylor’s conviction, this court assumed the Brook-ville Hotel was where the victim ate her last meal: “From the contents of her stomach, the pathologist determined Shirley Taylor died from one to two hours after ingestion of her meal at the Brookville Hotel.” State v. Taylor, 234 Kan. 401, 403, 673 P.2d 1140 (1983). Later, while reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, this court stated, “The food in Shirley Taylor’s stomach was eaten one to two hours before she died, and was the same food eaten at the Brookville Hotel.” 234 Kan. at 409. The evidence was that the victim died within one to two hours after eating her last meal; however, the evidence was not conclusive that the victim ate her last meal at the Brookville Hotel.
After his conviction was affirmed, the defendant eventually obtained his present counsel, who discovered the autopsy audiotape that clearly qualifies as newly discovered evidence. That tape was made by Officer Barry Plunkett of the Salina Police Department. At the autopsy, in addition to Dr. Eckert and an unidentified female, Plunkett, Joe Ingstrom of the Saline County *296Sheriff s Department, and John Green and Jim Lane of the Kánsas Bureau of Investigation were present.
Two points are important relating to information on tape. The Brookville Hotel serves only fried chicken and it does not serve tomatoes. Dr. Eckert’s testimony is that the chicken was not fried. The majority weighs Dr. Eckert’s K.S.Á. 60-1507 testimony to affirm the trial court. That is the function of a jury.
During the autopsy, when Dr. Eckert opened the stomach, the transcript of the tape, which Dr. Eckert testified was correct, quotes as follows:
“[Dr. Eckert:] [S]he had chicken, why don’t you call up and see what else they had on the menu, plus tomato .... (Emphasis supplied.) “[Unidentified voice:] Well, that’s going to be important.
“[Dr. Eckert:] What we can do is we can put this in a tray like this, if you want to take- a picture of it, so you can have that evidence, too; or, we can just put it all in a jar.
“[Unidentified male voice:] The statement the guy made is that apparently they went to Brookville, had lunch.or dinner and he took her back to Salina, yeah, she was found north of Brookville. Right.
“[Unidentified female voice says:] Is that chicken?
“[Dr. Eckert:] Yes, yes, that’s ....
“[Then the female voice again:] Is it fried chicken?
“[Dr. Eckert:] Well, no, it’s still soft.”
It is obvious that at that point Dr. Eckert did not know what the Brookville Hotel serves because he suggested they check the menu. It is equally obvious that others present at the autopsy knew that the Brookville Hotel serves pan-fried chicken family style and has had the same basic menu for decades.
Dr. Eckert testified he gave the stomach contents, which were in a jar, to the KBI. He also stated he suggested they have an expert in St. Louis, whose name and address he furnished, examine the contents.
The tomato versus carrot issue is different. Dr. Eckert said on the tape it was tomato. The tape reveals that, while Dr. Eckert was examining the wounds to the head, the tape clicked off and on. Then Plunkett said, “Reference to the stomach contents, scratch the tomato, it’s a carrot.” The tape continued with the examination of the victim’s head. Dr. Eckert never wavered in his testimony that the object was tomato, not carrot.
*297“Q. With respect to that section where Officer Barry Plunkett interrupts on the tape recording and interjects that in examining the stomach contents, you changed your observation that there were tomatoes in the stomach to, ‘It’s a carrot", did you make that change at the time of the autopsy?
“A. I don’t remember carrot. I remember tomato.
“THE COURT: Would you repeat your answer?
“THE WITNESS: I didn’t remember the carrot but I remembered the tomato.
“THE COURT: I’m not sure that is responsive to the question, is it?
“Q. Was there tomato in the stomach in 1982 when you observed the contents at the autopsy?
“A. Yes.
“Q. Did you testify in 1982 at the trial of this matter that not only was there tomato in the stomach but there was also lettuce?
“A. I said lettuce or cabbage, something like that.
“Q. And with respect to that, the lettuce and tomato that you testified to, are they observable in pictures today that are available from this autopsy?
“A. The pictures that — I looked for specifically, a reddish object which I felt was a tomato, and I see it on the picture of the gastric contents.
“Q. In your testimony in 1982, you say that the tomato is obvious. Is it still obvious to you today in observing that picture?
“A. Certainly.
“Q. It is?
“A. Uh-huh.”
On cross-examination, Dr. Eckert again said it looked like tomato and he was “sure [he] would know the difference between carrots and tomatoes.” He later testified:
“A. . . . Of course, I’m sure that I could tell the difference between the two in looking at it visually on a tray.
“Q. Okay. Well, visually looking at the substances on a tray, do you see an item which appears to look like a carrot?
“A. No, I see something that looks like a — like a tomato.
“Q. Do you see any orange substances which could be a carrot?
“A. No, the carrot has substance.”
There was also testimony that the victim had consumed popcorn within one and one-half hours prior to going to Brookville with the defendant. No trace of popcorn was noted in the stomach contents.
The victim’s body was found seven days after the Brookville dinner. Dr. Eckert, as noted by the majority, testified the victim had been dead two to four days when he performed the autopsy.
*298Gary Schoshke discovered the body while mowing the ditch. He was within an arm’s length of the body and, basically, remained at the location for several hours. Schoshke testified he did not smell anything, which would seem to be more consistent with Dr. Eckert’s opinion than the State’s position that seven days had passed.
I also have some reservations about writing off Dr. Eckert’s testimony as not credible. This is the same Dr. Eckert who acted as Sedgwick County Coroner starting in 1967 and was still serving at the time of testimony in this case. He performed approximately 300 autopsies a year in that capacity. Many of the persons serving long sentences for murder and manslaughter are in prison based on Dr. Eckert’s testimony. For example, in State v. Bird, 240 Kan. 288, 289, 729 P.2d 1136 (1986), cert. denied 481 U.S. 1055 (1987), the first autopsy, by a different doctor, resulted in an autopsy report that the deceased had died as a result of an automobile accident. The body was exhumed some nine months later, and, after performing an autopsy, Dr. Eckert testified the deceased had been murdered. The defendant was convicted.
Three months before the trial court heard this case, this court, in State v. Colwell, 246 Kan. 382, 386, 790 P.2d 430 (1990), said of Dr. Eckert: “The defense presented Dr. Eckert, who is known to this court to have a national reputation in the field of forensic pathology.” This court then reversed a first-degree felony-murder conviction based on the trial court’s refusal to allow the defendant to present Dr. Eckert’s qualifications to the jury because the State had stipulated he was qualified as an expert. The rationale was that Dr. Eckert was so eminently qualified that it was prejudicial to the defendant to tell the jury Dr. Eckert was qualified as an expert without allowing the defendant to place the doctor’s qualifications before the jury.
As recently as January of this year, we found jurisdiction proper based on Dr. Eckert’s testimony that a victim shot in the neck with a shotgun would have lived two or three minutes. Venue was challenged because the victim was shot on one side of a road dividing two counties and then dragged across the road to the other county. In re J.W.S., 250 Kan. 65, 69, 825 P.2d 125 (1992).
The evidence in this case is weak at best. The bullet wounds were consistent with the victim being shot while a passenger on *299the right side of a car. No evidence was produced that the murder took place in the defendant’s car or at the site where the body was found. No physical evidence was found linking the defendant to the crime.
If a jury concluded the chicken was not fried or the victim had tomato in her stomach, the jury could conclude the victim was not killed shortly after being with the defendant at the Brookville Hotel. If the victim was not killed after having dinner with the defendant at the Brookville Hotel, the State has little evidence against the defendant.
I do agree with the majority on the other issues, although the possibility exists that some of the evidence the trial court rejected might be both admissible and persuasive to a jury on retrial.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial, based on the evidence the State did not disclose to the defendant. The State recognized the significance of the contents of the victim’s stomach, yet did not have the contents examined and did not reveal Dr. Eckert’s opinions to defense counsel.
ALLEGRUCCI, J., joins in the foregoing dissent.