Court Opinion

ID: 9648412
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:19:41.165308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:00.568792
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(dissenting).
Where circumstances of a crime are likely to arouse hostility and passion, the court should exercise the utmost care with regard to the fairness of the trial. This was not done here, and, as a result, defendant *297was effectively tried and punished for two rapes under the guise of being tried for one.
Defendant was charged with a rape occurring at 507 Central, Mexico, Missouri. However, in the opening statement, the prosecutor, after relating the details of the rape at 507 Central, then said: “Then he picked up a pair of scissors and forced her to go out the back door and that the defendant took Mrs. Simms down to a place a couple of doors down, 515, it is in the same area, we will have some pictures to show you, took her there, there were persons in this other apartment, this is a project area in Mexico, and there on a bed raped her again.”
Defendant objected. The court ruled the prosecutor would be permitted to show defendant “was at the other place. Just minimize it, what took place there”, overruled defendant’s objection, and instructed the jury to “disregard any statement as to a subsequent offense.”
During the direct examination of the prosecutrix, after she had related the details of the rape at 507 Central, she told about being forced to go to 515 Central and then, in an unresponsive answer to the question, “What was there in the living room?' Was there a bed there?”, she stated, after describing the living room at 515 Central and some of its contents, “And Mitchell said, Uncle Walter, can I use your bed, I brought you something. And Uncle Walter just mumbled, so I was forced down on the bed and raped again right there.”
Again the court overruled defendant’s objection and request for mistrial and instructed the jury to “disregard the last statement of the witness at this time.”
The jury thus had before it two rapes of a 69 year old widow by a young negro, when he was supposed to be on trial for one rape. It is true the court instructed the jury to disregard the second rape, but as so accurately put in the oft quoted statement made by Mr. Justice Jackson in Krule-witch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 453, 69 S.Ct. 716, 723, 93 L.Ed. 790: “ . . . The naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury ... all practicing lawyers known to be unmitigated fiction . . .” So it is here.
The sentence of 75 years for an uncomplicated rape of a mature widow with no particularly aggravating circumstances (except the second rape) demonstrates the inflammatory effect the second rape had on the jury.1
I do not agree there was a question of identity of defendant involved which would justify permitting evidence of the second rape as necessary to show opportunity on the part of the prosecutrix to identify him, nor did the trial court, which considered the reference to the second rape improper, as shown by its direction to the jury to disregard it. There never was the slightest question of identity in this case. When the prosecutor first made mention of the second rape in the opening statement, he sought to justify it not on the ground that it was necessary to establish identity, but on the ground that it was all one continuous act and therefore admissible. When the prosecutrix was asked by the prosecutor to identify defendant she did so without hesitation and without objection from defendant. On cross-examination prosecutrix was steadfast in her identification of defendant. There was no effort made to shake her identification and it was not shaken. The prosecutor asked one of the policemen whether the prosecu-*298trix was hesitant in her identification, and the answer was that “she was quick to identify him, yes.”
During the state’s opening statement, when the prosecutor was relating how the arresting officers took defendant hack to where Mrs. Simms was, defendant’s counsel objected this was contrary to the United States Supreme Court cases about suggestive confrontations. The court overruled the objection. This objection was repeated at the close of the state’s case and again overruled. Counsel also objected to the police officer’s recital of his telling Mrs. Simms that they believed they had the man and that “there he is now.” This too was overruled.
These technical and hopeless objections by defense counsel to the conduct of the officers in the way they displayed defendant to Mrs. Simms after the arrest did not in any way justify the prosecutor or Mrs. Simms in bringing the second rape before the jury. The state’s claim there was a trial issue of identity is no more than an afterthought or a straw man, in the knocking down of which the prejudicial evidence as to the second rape is held admissible.2
Under the authority cited in the majority opinion, State v. Reese, 364 Mo. 1221, 274 S.W.2d 304, 307, the second rape is inadmissible, because it holds “. . . If the identity of the accused is established by other evidence and is therefore no longer an issue, it is improper to admit evidence of other crimes on the theory of proving identity . . . ” Application of this principle was recently made in State v. Hudson, (Mo.Sup.) 478 S.W.2d 281, where, under the guise of getting it into evidence to show that the victim had other opportunities to observe the defendant who was being prosecuted for a first degree robbery occurring at 1425 Vandeventer, St. Louis, the state brought out from the victim that he had seen defendant on two other occasions, one at Vandeventer and Kennerly, where defendant robbed him, and again in an alley, where defendant also robbed him. The victim had already testified to the robbery at 1425 Vandeventer and that he recognized the man who held him up, and it was ruled reversible error to bring before the jury the other crimes.
In the case before us, there was no need or justification for the prosecutor or the prosecutrix to tell the jury about the second rape and we should not permit it. The state could easily have shown that Mrs. Simms was with defendant at another location for a period of time after the first rape without bringing out the second rape. Getting the second rape before the jury kept defendant from having a fair trial. It is true the record shows no doubt as to defendant’s guilt. But we must insist on a fair trial even for those who are guilty. Otherwise we might as well forego judicial trials and leave guilt up to the police. I respectfully dissent and would reverse and remand.
If the case is not to be reversed and remanded, then I would be in favor of reducing the punishment to 25 years, under Rule 27.04, V.A.M.R., on the ground the punishment assessed is greater than, under the circumstances of the case, ought to be inflicted.

. We were informed at oral argument that against defendant. charges on the second rape are still pending

. The state in its brief and the majority opinion, in upholding the in-court identification of defendant by prosecutrix, point out the many opportunities the prosecutrix had to notice defendant, his appearance, dress, size, voice, etc. prior to either rape, and that her positive identification of defendant took place at the scene, within a few minutes after the arrest. This supports the in-eourt identification, without question. It also shows there was never any real issue or dispute in this trial as to defendant’s identity.