Court Opinion

ID: 9779524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 22:05:11.995882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:27.364214
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
dissenting.
I sympathize with the sentiments expressed in Judge Welliver’s opinion. It is often necessary for appellate judges, in the line of duty, to express disagreement with circuit judges and prosecutors. I believe that the trial judge should have undertaken the bench trial as requested.
It is the responsibility of a prosecutor, as an officer of the court, to see that the defendant is afforded a fair trial. State v. Selle, 367 S.W.2d 522, 530 (Mo.1963) (Prosecutor has duty to refrain from conduct calculated to engender prejudice or excite passion against defendant). See also, State v. Tiedt, 357 Mo. 115, 206 S.W.2d 524 (1947).
The majority opinion finds no prejudicial error in the prosecutor’s conduct. Here the prosecutor persisted in injecting possibly prejudicial material about defense counsel’s failure to call an endorsed witness, after objection was sustained. The transcript does not indicate that his comments were not heard by the jury. This same prosecutor was held to have acted in bad faith, resulting in reversible error, for similar misconduct in State v. Thomas, 535 S.W.2d 138 (Mo.App.1976). In that case, the court found “a studied effort by the prosecutor to convince the jury, by the manner of framing questions and by stating in the presence of the jury as true events not established by evidence....” Id. at 140. Apparently the lecture went unheeded.
There is no way of knowing the cumulative effect his misconduct in the present case had on the jury, and I too believe that the circumstances of this case require our special consideration. In this case, where the state’s evidence of sanity rested solely on the prosecutor’s cross-examination of appellant’s expert witnesses and the statu*26tory presumption of sanity1, I choose to err on the side of appellant and would remand for a new trial.

. Section 552.030, RSMo 1986, provides in part:
6. All persons are presumed to be free from mental disease or defect.... The issue ... is one for the trier of fact to decide upon the introduction of substantial evidence of lack of such responsibility_ Upon the introduction of substantial evidence of lack of such responsibility, the presumption shall not disappear and shall alone be sufficient to take that issue to the trier of fact....
I have reservations about the constitutional validity of this provision, in a case in which the evidence of insanity is uncontradicted and overwhelming, but no constitutional issue was argued to us.