Court Opinion

ID: 9664809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:30:32.87603+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:10.493924
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent and would quash the writs as to guilty pleas, State ex rel. Turner v. Kinder, No. 69544, as to preliminary hearings, State ex rel. Jackson v. Kinder, No. 69546, and as to arraignments and not guilty pleas, State ex rel. Arnold v. Kinder, No. 69545.
The simple issue presented to us is whether split-screen video is an acceptable means of communication between judges and defendants physically sitting in separate courtrooms — whether our constitution and implementing statutes contemplated more or better communication between defendants and judges and witnesses than closed circuit television can provide.
When I look at the hundreds of instances where this Court has excused deviation from long established trial procedures and from strict letter of the law construction of statutes in criminal cases with the words “we find no prejudice to the defendant,” I am at a total loss to either see or understand the great prejudices to defendants contemplated by the principal opinion. Today split screen video appears to be an acceptable means of conducting the commercial business of the world, of conducting affairs between nations, of conducting political debate, of conducting the process of education, of communicating all forms of artistic pursuit, and for communicating to us the news of the world. In each and every instance we successfully, I believe, use the video process to evaluate the look of the eyes, the facial expressions, the mannerisms and the body language of the communicating party.
At argument, when Relator’s counsel was asked to tell how his clients were prejudiced, he could only retreat from arguing prejudice in fact to arguing technical prejudice or a presumption of prejudice resulting from technical interpretation of the words of the statutes.
The principal opinion suggests that by enacting § 544.275, RSMo 1986, the legislature gave the judiciary only a single alternative to conducting pre-trial criminal proceedings in the courthouse courtroom, that of designating a room in the department of corrections as an alternative courtroom. I cannot read the statute so narrowly. Authorizing the trial judge to exercise his discretion as to which of the two rooms he will utilize is really no different than his exercising his discretion to utilize both courtrooms with acceptable visual and voice communication between the two. I view the statute as injecting flexibility into our former rigid procedure.
In 1983 the legislature enacted § 492.303.3, RSMo 1986 which states how a deposition may be taken and its use.
3. The deposition may be taken if the witness is an essential witness. The deposition may be videotaped. At the trial or upon any hearing any deposition obtained in accordance with this section, so far as it is otherwise admissible under the rules of evidence, may be used by either party for any reason stated in *659Missouri supreme court rules of criminal procedure. In addition, the deposition may be used by the state if the witness refuses to testify or fails to attend the trial or hearing if this refusal or failure to attend the trial or hearing is not produced by the action of the state.
§ 492.308.3, RSMo 1986. It seems only logical that if videotaped depositions may be introduced at trial when a witness is unavailable to testify, then all video taped pre-trial proceedings should also be permitted.
There is no disagreement about the benefits flowing from permitting video taped pre-trial proceedings to be conducted simultaneously in the Cole County courtroom and a conference room in the department of corrections designated as a courtroom. Both the time and cost of transporting prisoners from the department of corrections to the courtroom and back is substantially reduced. Safety and security are substantially improved, and, probably most important, the judicial process is shortened without prejudice to the defendant.
The judge’s presence in the same room with the defendant is not necessary. The defendant both sees and hears the judge. The judge sees and hears the defendant’s responses. The judge can assess the vol-untariness of the defendant’s plea as well on the screen as if the defendant were in the same room. The judge can ask the defendant questions to determine that he understands what he is doing. He can judge the defendant’s demeanor and mannerisms as though defendant were standing before the bench in the courtroom. There is in fact no prejudice to the defendant.
Sections 544.250 and 544.270, RSMo 1986, deal with the procedure required for a preliminary hearing. Section 544.250 provides that the accused shall have the right of a preliminary examination “before some associate circuit judge in the county where the offense is alleged to have been committed.” Section 544.270 states that “[the] associate circuit judge before whom any such person shall be brought shall proceed, as soon as may be, to examine the complainant and witnesses produced in support of the prosecution, on oath, in the presence of the prisoner, in regard to the offense charged, and other matters connected with such charge which such associate circuit judge may deem pertinent.”
The sole purpose of the preliminary hearing is to determine whether a felony has been committed, whether probable cause exists to believe the accused is guilty, and whether he shall be bound over or committed to jail for trial. State v. Brinkley, 354 Mo. 337, 189 S.W.2d 314, 319 (1945).
A preliminary examination is in no sense a trial and does not finally adjudicate the guilt or innocence of an accused. It is simply a means to prevent abuse of power by the prosecution, while at the same time to permit arrest and detention of an accused by means of a limited inquiry into whether there is probable cause that a felony was committed and that the accused was the offender.
State v. Clark, 546 S.W.2d 455, 462 (Mo.App.1977).
The preliminary hearing has the following characteristics: a proceeding before a judicial tribunal; witnesses under oath; a judicial record of the hearing; a defendant represented by counsel; opportunity by counsel to cross-examination; and actual cross-examination of the witnesses. State v. Lindsay, 709 S.W.2d 499, 505 (Mo.App.1986). Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 69, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 2540, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980).
Previous preliminary hearing testimony, cross-examined, like previous trial testimony, cross-examined, is generally free from confrontation problems. Lindsay at 504.
The closed circuit preliminary hearing contains all the characteristics in Lindsay. It was conducted before a duly constituted judicial tribunal, the witnesses were under oath, the defendants were represented by counsel, counsel cross-examined the witnesses, and the proceedings were recorded in a judicial record. Portions of preliminary hearings could be used during the trial on the merits if a witness were to become unavailable.
The predecessor of § 544.250, RSMo 1986 was enacted in 1905 and the predeces*660sor of § 544.270, RSMo 1986 was enacted in 1818. These statutes are virtually in the same form as they were when enacted. They were enacted long before we had the communication capability that is available today. In my view, the Constitution of Missouri is a living constitution, a constitution capable of adapting to the technology of the 1980’s. It is the kind of constitution described by Chief Justice Hughes in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 443-444, 54 S.Ct. 231, 242, 78 L.Ed. 413 (1934) when he stated:
It is no answer to say that this public need was not apprehended a century ago, or to insist that what the provision of the Constitution meant to the vision of that day it must mean to the vision of our time. If by the statement that what the Constitution meant at the time of its adoption it means to-day, it is intended to say that the great clauses of the Constitution must be confined to the interpretation which the framers, with the conditions and outlook of their time, would have placed upon them, the statement carries its own refutation. It was to guard against such a narrow conception that Chief Justice Marshall uttered the memorable warning: ‘We must never forget, that it is a constitution we are expounding’ (McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407, 4 L.Ed. 579); ‘a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.’ Id. at page 415 of 4 Wheat. When we are dealing with the words of the Constitution, said this Court in Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416, 433, 40 S.Ct. 382, 383, 64 L.Ed. 641, 11 A.L.R. 984, ‘we must realize that they have called into life a being the development of which could not have been foreseen completely by the most gifted of its begetters * * * The case before us must be considered in light of our whole experience and not merely in that of what was said a hundred years ago.’
Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 443-444, 54 S.Ct. 231, 242, 78 L.Ed. 413 (1934).
So interpreted, the intent of the drafters of our constitution and the intent of the drafters of the several implementing statutes relating to pre-trial procedures can be carried out by the judge in his discretion utilizing both the courthouse courtroom and the approved courtroom in the department of corrections connected by closed circuit television utilizing split screen projection in each courtroom and a video taped permanent record of the proceedings.
I know of no good reason for invalidating these or the prior video taped pre-trial proceedings. The responsibility for guaranteeing to defendant a fair trial is ours. With carefully drafted court rules approving such pre-trial procedures and with a minimum of judicial oversight in the future, we can guarantee to all defendants continued due process in all pre-trial proceedings while assuring the public of safety, security, and economic and timely handling of these judicial criminal pre-trial procedures.
All of the writs should be quashed and approval given to the Cole County Circuit Court to continue these procedures pending our development, drafting and publication óf more comprehensive rules relating to such procedures.