Court Opinion

ID: 9649157
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:43:30.631912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:08.299456
License: Public Domain

ELLIS, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the reasoning used, and the result reached, in the majority opinion. However, I respectfully decline the opportunity to join in the majority’s obiter dictum to the effect that had the trial court believed the state’s furtive gestures testimony, then the search in this case was legal.
In Muench v. South Side Nat. Bank, 251 S.W.2d 1 (Mo.1952), our Supreme Court stated:
‘An obiter dictum, in the language of the law, is a gratuitous opinion — an individual impertinence — which, whether it be wise or foolish, right or wrong, bindeth none, not even the lips that utter it.’ Hart v. Stribling, 25 Fla. 433, 435, 6 So. 455. Or as classically expressed by Judge Caskie Collet, it is “ ‘That useless chatter of judges, indulged in for reasons known only to them, to be printed at public expense.’” United States v. Certain Land in City of St. Louis, D.C., 29 F.Supp. 92, loc. cit. 95 [(1939)].
Muench, 251 S.W.2d at 6. Under our standard of review, we must disregard Officer Schmidt’s “furtive gestures” testimony. In reviewing a trial court’s order on a motion to suppress, the facts and all reasonable inferences arising therefrom “are to be stated favorably to the trial court’s order,” State v. Franklin, 841 S.W.2d 639, *676641 (Mo. banc 1992) (emphasis added), and all contrary evidence and inferences must be disregarded. State v. Blair, 691 S.W.2d 259, 260 (Mo. banc 1985) (emphasis added). Thus, any “what if’ speculation about what the result would be “if Officer Schmidt’s testimony is taken as true,” Maj. Op. at 675, is irrelevant to disposition of the instant appeal. “Judicial opinions are meant to resolve legal disputes. Therefore, an appellate court does not decide and should suppress its instructive instincts and not discuss issues which are irrelevant and unimportant to resolution of the legal dispute presented.” Coalition to Preserve Educ. On the Westside v. School Dist. Of Kansas City, 649 S.W.2d 533, 536 (Mo.App. W.D.1983).
The instant appeal is a poster child for the wisdom of the rule against deciding issues irrelevant to resolution of the pending case. It must be recalled that the undisputed evidence in this case was that the police officers waited approximately five minutes after they stopped Mr. McFall’s vehicle until they exited the police car and approached his vehicle. I can see a very significant potential for abuse if law enforcement officers are permitted to use “furtive gestures” by a defendant to justify a search, when those movements are made during a protracted delay, caused by the officers, between the stop of the vehicle and the officers approaching it. It is only reasonable for a driver waiting that long for the officers to approach his car to be looking over his shoulder, becoming anxious and acting nervously. For this reason, if no other, discussion and decision of that issue should be left to a case in which it is presented. Ultimately, however, the saving grace is that dictum has no controlling or precedential value.
The statements ... are obiter dicta in that they were not essential to the court’s decision of the issue before it. Accordingly, the statements are not controlling on this court. “Any reported opinion should be read in the light of the facts of that particular case, and it would be unfair as well as improper ‘to give permanent and controlling effect to casual statements outside the scope of the real inquiry.’”
Campbell v. Labor and Indus. Relations Com’n, 907 S.W.2d 246, 251 (Mo.App.W.D.1995) (Citations omitted).