Court Opinion

ID: 9644994
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:09:52.976549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:21.173060
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM.
Although we hereby overrule and deny defendant’s motion for rehearing or for transfer to the Supreme Court filed under Rules 83.02 and 84.17, a point raised by the motion requires comment.
In this case, defendant challenges the constitutionality of the conspiracy statute, § 564.016, under which she was prosecuted, a challenge we held to be untimely when made for the first time at the close of all the evidence.
On motion for rehearing, defense counsel has directed us to a line of cases stemming from Ex parte Smith, 135 Mo. 223, 36 S.W. 628, 630 (1896), a habeas corpus proceeding in which the court stated that because an unconstitutional law “is no law, then its constitutionality is open to attack at any stage of the proceedings, and even after conviction and judgment, and this upon the ground that no crime is shown, and therefore the trial court had no jurisdiction .... ” Accordingly, the court held that the constitutionality of the vagrancy statute under which defendant was convicted would be considered in a habeas corpus proceeding.
In In re Flukes, 157 Mo. 125, 57 S.W. 545 (1900), Ex parte Lerner, 281 Mo. 18, 218 S.W. 331 (1920), and Ex parte Taft, 284 Mo. 531, 225 S.W. 457 (1920) (en banc), the rule was again applied to permit review of the constitutionality of a statute in a habeas corpus proceeding.
The Supreme Court cited this rule as well in Kansas City v. Hammer, 347 S.W.2d 865 (Mo.1961) (permitting the circuit court to determine the constitutionality of an obscenity ordinance first raised by defendant in the municipal court but waived in the
circuit court); Kansas City v. Douglas, 473 S.W.2d 101 (Mo.1971) (“[ajssuming without deciding that these cases [Hammer, Lerner and Smith ] provide an exception to the general rule that constitutional questions must be raised at the first available opportunity ... ”); and State v. Mitchell, 563 S.W.2d 18 (Mo.1978) (en banc) (permitting defendant to challenge on appeal the constitutionality of the statute classifying marijuana as a schedule I substance, even though he pleaded guilty to the charge, because “jurisdictional defects and defenses are not waived by entering a guilty plea.”)
In its latest decision in this line of cases, the Supreme Court quoted Ex parte Smith, supra, in State ex rel. Williams v. Marsh, 626 S.W.2d 223 (Mo.1982) (en banc), and held that because the facial unconstitutionality of a statute relied on by a plaintiff as a basis for relief is a matter of subject matter jurisdiction, the trial court was empowered to decide the point at any time sua sponte.
By contrast, in our opinion we have relied on a separate line of cases holding that constitutional questions — even those challenging the facial constitutionality of a statute under which the defendant is charged — must be raised at the earliest possible moment and preserved in a motion for new trial.
That rule originated with State v. Mackey, 259 S.W. 430 (Mo.1924), as discussed in our opinion. Mackey was cited in State v. Lofton, 1 S.W.2d 830, 832 (Mo.1927), in which the court held that the defendant’s failure to challenge at trial the constitutionality of the statute under which he was charged “is a concession of the validity of the statute.”
Without distinguishing or citing the Ex parte Smith line of cases in any way, the Mackey rule was followed as well in State v. Byrne, 503 S.W.2d 693 (Mo.1973) (en banc) (holding that defendant’s challenge that the statute under which he was charged was unconstitutionally vague was not properly preserved because it was not raised at any stage of the trial proceedings), *926and State v. Flynn, 519 S.W.2d 10 (Mo.1975), involving a statutory challenge on the grounds of unconstitutional vagueness. In Flynn, the Supreme Court stated at 12 that a constitutional question must be raised at “the earliest time consistent with good pleading and orderly procedure,” and that where that issue pertains to the information or indictment, “[t]he earliest possible moment ... is in a motion to dismiss or to quash .... ”
The Mackey rule as reaffirmed in Flynn was followed by the Supreme Court most recently in State v. Wickizer, 583 S.W.2d 519 (Mo.1979) (en banc), in which the court did not permit defendant to raise a constitutional challenge to the sodomy statute under which he was convicted for the first time on appeal. Judge Morgan wrote the majority opinion in which Judges Rendlen, Donnelly and Simeone concurred. Judge Simeone concurred as well with Judge Bardgett in his concurring opinion in which he cited Kansas City v. Hammer, supra, for the rule that the question is one of subject matter jurisdiction and cannot be waived. Judge Seiler dissented on another ground but concurred in Judge Bardgett’s concurring opinion on the subject matter jurisdiction issue.
None of the cases in either of these lines of decisions has been overruled.
We adhere to the position adopted in our opinion herein, noting that whenever the Supreme Court has specifically addressed the timeliness question it has adhered to the rule it set out in State v. Mackey, supra.