Court Opinion

ID: 9640280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:02:16.435001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:28.839163
License: Public Domain

PARRISH, Presiding
Judge, concurring.
I concur in the result reached. As the principal opinion states concerning the absence of a transcript of testimony from the hearing on the motion to suppress, the issue addressed in that hearing was collateral to defendant’s guilt or innocence. The testimony was not presented to the jury in the criminal case. In my opinion, if the witnesses who testified at the initial hearing are now available, the rationale of State v. Mitchell, 611 S.W.2d 211 (Mo. banc 1981), is applicable. Mitchell is a decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri. This court is bound by it. Mo. Const. art. V, § 2; Soto v. State, 858 S.W.2d 869, 871 (Mo.App.1993).
I agree with the principal opinion’s assessment that the court reporter involved in the trial and the suppression hearing failed to do her job. Section 485.050, RSMo 1994, states the duties of an official court reporter. Those duties include preserving “all official notes taken in said court for future use or reference, and to furnish to any person or persons a transcript of all or any part of said evidence or oral proceedings.... ” Id.
The court reporter’s failure to preserve the notes from the suppression hearing is inexcusable notwithstanding that the rationale of Mitchell affords a possible remedy for the situation that now exists. It should be noted that the reporter who now serves as official court reporter of the 39th Judicial Circuit was not the reporter who served in that capacity at the time the trial and suppression hearing were held.