Court Opinion

ID: 9646154
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:50:34.513919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:34.739348
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in that portion of the opinion which holds that if the jury verdict is valid that the sentence of one year on each count was not less than the authorized lower term for a class C felony.
I dissent as to that portion of the opinion which holds that the defendant did not suc*589ceed in injecting the claim of right under § 570.070.
The verb “inject” in the sense used in the statute means “to introduce as an element or factor in or into some situation or subject”. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (1967), p. 1164. It is not a word of arcane, mysterious or technical meaning. Here Buger Hook said his uncle David Hook owed him three weeks’ wages for working in the timber and that he went to David Hook’s house to get his money; that he took the furs because David Hook would not give him the money owed for the timber work; that he thought he had a right to go in the house and get the furs because his uncle, David Hook, owed him the money. The defendant testified that he did not know the furs were in the car until on the way to Marshall and that Buger Hook told him he took the furs for wages due from David Hook.
The foregoing testimony “injected” or introduced into the case the element of claim of right because the jury had the right to believe and could have believed had they chose to do so, based upon the foregoing testimony with nothing more, that Buger Hook acted in the honest belief that he had the right to take the furs and that defendant took him at his word.
What the principal opinion declares, in effect, is that Buger Hook’s testimony and that of the defendant is unbelievable, that despite the foregoing testimony there is no evidence of any honest belief on the part of either Buger Hook or defendant.
How can we say that the jury would not have believed Hook or defendant had the proposition been put to them under MAI-CR2d 2.37.3.2? The jury was there and heard the evidence, saw the witnesses and their demeanor and the jury is the sole judge of the weight and credibility of the evidence, not this court. It makes no difference whether we believe the testimony or not.
The question is not believability, but sub-missibility. State v. Brown, 104 Mo. 365, 16 S.W. 406, 407 (1891). What was said in State v. Meeks, 619 S.W.2d 830, 831-32 (Mo. App.1981) about the quality and quantity of the evidence injecting submission of the defense of mental disease or defect (which is also a special negative defense, MAI— CR2d 3.74, Notes on Use 6) is appropriate here also:
We do not intend to characterize the defendant’s case for mental disease or defect as either strong or weak, but it is more than a scintilla. We might believe that the defendant’s witnesses were of dubious veracity, or we might believe that their testimony was not plausible— or accepting their testimony as true, we might believe it does not show mental disease or defect excluding responsibility. But that is not our judgment to make. That is a judgment for the jury to make, and it was the trial court’s duty to submit the issue to the jury upon proper instructions, ....
The principal opinion sets forth various reasons on pages 8-9 as to why Buger Hook should not be believed. This would have been appropriate jury argument for the state at the trial level. It has no place here where we do not pass on the credibility of the witnesses.