Court Opinion

ID: 9684161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:48:31.188581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:53.497325
License: Public Domain

BARDGETT, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in that part of the principal opinion dealing with the jury selection issue. I dissent from that part of the opinion styled, “THE JOINDER AND SEVERANCE ISSUES”, in which the court holds that Rule 24.04, in authorizing joint trial of separate offenses over a defendant’s objection, is a constitutionally proper exercise of this court’s rulemaking power under art. V, sec. 5, Mo.Const., as amended, and that a defendant is not entitled to a severance as a matter of right.
The right to be tried for separate offenses is, in Missouri, a substantive right which is subject to change only by statute, State v. Terry, 325 S.W.2d 1, 4 (Mo.1959), and not by court rule. My reasons for so concluding have been set forth in my dissenting opinion in State v. Neal, 514 S.W.2d 544 (Mo. banc 1974), and my concurring opinion in State v. Baker, 524 S.W.2d 122 (Mo. banc 1975).
In addition to the reasons stated in my separate opinions in Neal and Baker, the reasoning of Henley, J., and the court’s holdings in State v. Bursby, 395 S.W.2d 155 (Mo.1965), support the conclusion that a right to a severance of counts alleging separate crimes is a substantive matter in Missouri.
In Bursby, the defendants (Bursby brothers) were charged in one information with three counts as follows: count 1 — burglary of the Terry Town Store building owned by Lonus Speight and stealing therefrom; count 2 — burglary on the same date of a tin grainery owned by Speight, located near the Terry Town Store, and stealing therefrom; and count 3 — stealing of Speight’s cement mixer located near the store building. The defendants, without counsel and upon waiving counsel, entered a plea of guilty to the information after being told by the judge they were charged with “a felony”; that they were entitled to a jury trial and counsel, etc. The court sentenced them to a term of four years on each of the three counts, the sentences to run consecutively. The Bursby brothers thereafter filed a 27.26 motion which was denied without hearing and the appeal came to this court.
*21This court granted relief holding that a person could be tried and convicted of only one felony at a time. The court said at 157-158:
“The offenses of burglary, and stealing in connection with such burglary, although separate and distinct crimes, may be joined in one information, and an accused may be tried and convicted of both offenses in one trial only because the rule and statute authorize and permit such as an exception to the general rule; the general rule being that an accused may not be charged, tried and convicted at the same time of two separate and distinct offenses. State v. Prestar, 316 Mo. 144, 290 S.W. 142 and cases there cited; State v. Terry, Mo., 325 S.W.2d 1, 4[3], and cases there cited.”
And, quoting from State v. Prestar, 316 Mo. 144, 290 S.W. 142, 143-144, Bursty further stated at 158-159:
“ * * * In justice to all parties concerned, we think the matter should be disposed of as though counsel for appellant made no request of the court to require the prosecuting attorney to elect upon which of the four counts he would proceed, until the filing of the motion for a new trial, as aforesaid. On the other hand, the [trial] court ruled it was not required to order an election under the laws of this state. We hold that, under the rulings of this court, the question of election is not a mere matter of form, which may be waived, as claimed by the state, supra, but it involves a question of jurisdiction and power. This principle of law was announced with great clearness and force by Judge Gantt in the leading case of State v. Carragin, 210 Mo. [351] loe. cit. 371, 109 S.W. [553] 558, (16 L.R.A. [N.S.] 561) where he said: ‘In instructing the jury that they might find the defendant guilty under both counts, and in refusing to require the prosecuting attorney to elect after all the evidence was in, the court committed reversible error. We know of no case under our practice in which an accused may be tried and convicted of two distinct felonies except in the case of burglary and larceny, which is expressly allowed by statute.’
“The law, as above written is fully sustained by other decisions of this court, as follows: State v. Guye, 299 Mo. [348] loc. cit. 366, 252 S.W. 955; State v. Link [315 Mo. 192], 286 S.W. 12 et seq.
“We have no hesitation in holding that, on the record before us, the judgment of conviction in which defendant has been sentenced to the penitentiary for 8 years on four separate and distinct felonies, set out in four separate counts of the information, cannot stand the test of judicial criticism, under the laws of this state. We are of the opinion that it was the absolute duty of the trial court in this case, whether requested or not, to have directed the prosecuting attorney, before submitting the case to the jury, to elect on which of the four counts in the information he would proceed to trial and to strike out the remainder. In addition to foregoing, as a part of the state’s case, whether requested or not, it was the imperative duty of the court to instruct the jury that they could not find the defendant guilty except on the single count submitted for their consideration. State v. Burrell, 298 Mo. [672] loc. cit. 678, 679, 252 S.W. 709, and cases cited.”
Art. V, sec. 5, Mo.Const., says that the rules of practice and procedure “shall not change substantive rights.” The principal opinion follows the observation of Finch, J., in Baker, supra, to the effect that Rule 24.04 is a rule of procedure. That observation is sound, in my judgment, and one with which I do not disagree, but it is not dispos-itive of the issue which the constitution puts to us. The point is that Rule 24.04 is a rule of procedure which changes the substantive right of criminal defendants to have separate trials for separate offenses, a right which was the practice of our courts to honor prior to the promulgation of the rule.
What is a “substantive” right? Former Governor Guy B. Park, who introduced the amendment which later became art. V, sec. 5, at the 1943-44 Constitutional Convention, described substantive rights as “the rights *22guaranteed by the Constitution of this state and of the nation. The rights that have been established by custom and by common law — they shall not be abridged, enlarged nor modified.” XIII Debates of the Missouri Constitution 1945 at 3824.
The Convention considered an amendment to that which became sec. 5 which would have granted unlimited power to the Supreme Court to promulgate rules of practice and procedure. Delegate Garten, speaking as one “unreservedly opposed to this amendment”, suggested that it was “too great a delegation of power” which fails to “give the Legislature the power to annul or amend some rule which may endanger private rights.” XIII Debates of the Missouri Constitution 1945 at 3875. (Emphasis added.) The amendment was defeated by a voice vote.
In Maurizi v. Western Coal & Mining Co., 321 Mo. 378, 11 S.W.2d 268 (banc 1928), we described as substantive law “ ‘that part of the law which creates, defines and regulates rights as opposed to adjective or remedial law, which prescribes the method of enforcing rights or obtaining redress for their invasion.’ ” Id. at 272. See also Shepherd v. Consumers Cooperative Association, 384 S.W.2d 635, 640 (Mo.banc 1964); Barker v. St. Louis County, 340 Mo. 986, 104 S.W.2d 371, 377-378 (1937); Ambrose v. State Department of Public Health & Welfare, 319 S.W.2d 271, 274 (Mo.App.1958); Poyser v. Minors, 7 Q.B.D. 329, 333 (1881).
Was the general rule prior to our adoption of Rule 24.04, as enunciated in Bursby, supra, a rule of “substantive” dimension? I believe the answer to be yes.
In seeking to understand the origin of our general rule prior to 24.04, it has been necessary to examine the foundation for the decisions wherein the old rule was reaffirmed. Bursby relies on State v. Terry, supra, and State v. Preslar, supra, which rely on State v. Carragin, 210 Mo. 351, 109 S.W. 553 (1908), which relies on Mayo v. State, 30 Ala. 32, 33 (1857), and Mayo relies on State v. Nelson, 8 N.H. 163, 165 (1835), which states: “[N]o court ever permits a prisoner to be tried for two distinct and separate crimes upon one indictment; because by such a course he might be confounded in his defence, and the minds of the jurors distracted.”
Nelson finally relies upon Young v. The King, 3 D. & E. 98 (K.B.1789), which says at 106 per Buller, J., that the rule exists “lest it should confound the prisoner in his de-fence, or prejudice him in his challenge of the jury; for he might object to a juryman’s trying one of the offences, though he might have no reason to do so in the other. . I thought it the soundest way of administering justice ... in order to give a prisoner a fair trial.”
What our Rule 24.04 changed was a rule which existed “in order to give a prisoner a fair trial.” I cannot imagine a rule of greater substantive import. It is not relevant that Rule 24.04 can be described as procedural. After all, “[t]he history of American freedom is, in no small measure, the history of procedure.” Malinski v. New York, 324 U.S. 401, 414, 65 S.Ct. 781, 787, 89 L.Ed. 1029 (1945) (Frankfurter, J.). A procedural rule can affect and change substantive rights. In my judgment, our Rule 24.-04 does so, and is thus beyond our constitutional authority.
In my opinion, it was error to deny defendant’s motion for severance. It should have been granted. See concurring opinion of Donnelly, J., in Neal, supra, at 550.