Court Opinion

ID: 9773108
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:37:46.299366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:50.207568
License: Public Domain

BARDGETT, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the per curiam opinion in this case but do so on rather narrow grounds. This case involves an original prosecution where the defendant was charged with murder in the first degree of James Bell, murder in the first degree of Gladys Gregg, robbery of James Bell, and robbery of Gladys Gregg. These charges were brought under § 559.010, RSMo 1969, which is our old murder-in-the-first-degree statute and permits murder in the first degree to be submitted to the jury upon evidence that the homicide was committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate certain felonies, among which is robbery. The murder submission in this case was made under the so-called felony-murder rule, which, in order to convict of murder in the first degree, required a finding by the jury that the defendant was engaged in the felony of robbery and in the course of the robbery killed the deceased. A failure to find the defendant killed the deceased in the course of the robbery would require a jury verdict of not guilty on the charge of murder in the first degree. However, in my opinion it would not preclude the jury from finding that the defendant was guilty of the robbery.
In this case the jury found defendant not guilty of both counts of murder. The state dismissed the charge of robbery of James Bell during the course of the trial, after jeopardy attached, which would preclude a reprosecution for that offense. However, the charge of robbery of Gladys Gregg was submitted to the jury and the jury returned no verdict (hung jury). Of necessity, the court then declared a mistrial and discharged the jury.
In this case we see an instance where the prosecutor has charged and tried the defendant for all of the crimes (robbery and murder) arising out of that particular event which were available for prosecution under the law and rules of this Court. What we do not have is an instance where the prosecution withheld part of the matter, i. e., the *129robbery, so as to prosecute for the robbery in the event that the jury acquitted of the felony murder based upon the robbery. Nor do we have an instance where the prosecutor undertook to split up the original crime (murder in the first degree based on the robbery) and later prosecute it piecemeal. Therefore I believe that the original submission for felony murder was properly submitted as a homicide committed in the course of the felony of robbery and that the jury would have been permitted to find defendant not guilty of the first-degree murder and guilty of the robbery. At the time this case was tried the instructions were submitted for murder in the first degree as a homicide committed while in the course of the robbery, and independently and conjunctively for the underlying robbery. In my opinion the proscription against double punishment would have precluded the jury and does preclude the jury from finding the defendant guilty of both robbery and murder in the first degree premised on the underlying felony of robbery, and then assessing a punishment for each of those crimes.
It is my opinion that State v. Morgan, 592 S.W.2d 796 (Mo. banc 1980), held in essence that if the felony relied upon to obtain a conviction of first-degree murder, where it is alleged that the homicide occurred during the course of the felony, results in a conviction of first-degree murder, the underlying felony has been “used up” and cannot become the basis of another conviction or another punishment. This is not, in the ordinary sense, a lesser-included-offense situation. It is simply a situation created by the legislature in enacting a statute, which in effect declares that if a person in committing a particular type of felony kills someone in the course of the felony the killing is murder in the first degree. It is therefore my opinion that the felony of robbery should have been submitted as an alternative to felony murder in the first degree to be considered by the jury only in the event that they found defendant not guilty of first-degree murder premised on that robbery.
Had the state not proceeded on the underlying felony in this original prosecution but only on the charge of first-degree murder premised on the commission of the underlying felony, then, in my opinion, the state would have tried to prosecute the defendant piecemeal. See State v. Richardson, 460 S.W.2d 537, 539 (Mo. banc 1970).
Of course there will be instances where, under the facts of a given case, the state will not be able to proceed with the prosecution of the robbery because of collateral estoppel under Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1969), as well as instances where, under Rule 24.-04(a), the underlying felony cannot be charged. However; in the instant case the evidence of the offenses was circumstantial and it cannot be said that the “real” issue was whether or not the defendant was present at the scene, as was the case in Ashe v. Swenson, supra.
I therefore concur in the affirmance of the conviction.