Court Opinion

ID: 9682922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:19:37.526802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:43.215958
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached in this appeal, but I have some difficulty with that portion of the opinion which, in disposing of appellant’s third Point Relied On, considers appellant’s claim that the State was permitted to enjoy the benefit of the record entries made by Dr. Reginald McKinney in the Homer G. Phillips Hospital records in framing a hypothetical question propounded to Dr. Amin seeking an opinion from him concerning the nature of the lacerations in Miss Chestnut’s eyes at the time of her admission to the Hospital. The thrust of appellant’s contention was that the State accomplished indirectly through the testimony of Dr. Amin what it could not accomplish directly through the testimony of Dr. McKinney, who, if he had testified, would have been subject to cross-examination. This contention was found to be without merit; and with this holding I have no argument. I do, however, find it necessary that my concurrence in the result be expressed in a separate concurring opinion for two reasons. First, I am of the firm opinion that this issue has not been properly preserved for review and Secondly, if I am in error in that conclusion, then I believe that the opinion holding this point to be without merit has failed to consider and dispose of the most pertinent argument of appellant in support of his position.
*662Appellant’s third Point Relied On is that the trial court erred in overruling his motion for judgment at the close of the State’s case and at the close of the entire case filed in both the 1972 and the 1974 trials. As sub-points he contends (1) that the presentation of the testimony of Dr. McKinney in 1972 by the prosecution with full knowledge that he had given prior inconsistent sworn testimony before the Grand Jury and the failure to furnish that testimony before the Grand Jury to the defendant constituted a Brady v. Maryland violation and (2) that the conflicting testimony of Dr. McKinney negates the establishment of a corpus de-licti as to the “blinding assault charge.”
The opinion disposes of appellant’s first sub-point, and I concur in this disposition. The second sub-point is inappropriate in that this appeal is from a conviction of robbery in the first degree. The “blinding assault charge,” Count I of the Indictment, was dismissed by the State at the conclusion of all of the evidence. There can be no appeal from that Count. Thus, it is my humble opinion that whether Dr. McKinney’s “conflicting testimony” negates the establishment of a corpus delicti of the charge alleged in Count I of the Indictment becomes irrelevant and immaterial to the merits of this appeal from a jury verdict and conviction on Count II of the Indictment. What we have done, I conclude, in attempting to dispose of argument interposed in support of this Point, is to excise from Point Third what might more properly have been presented in support of appellant’s Point One with respect to admission of irrelevant and highly inflammatory evidence of an assault which the State subsequently dismissed.
We have, correctly, I believe, found no merit to appellant’s Point One for the reasons stated. However, I believe that it is unnecessary to this opinion to consider and dispose of the appellant’s contention that the State accomplished indirectly what it could not do directly, with respect to Dr. McKinney’s findings for reasons heretofore stated.
In gratuitously considering appellant’s argument that he was deprived of his right to confront and cross-examine Dr. Reginald McKinney under this Point and finding it to be without merit will, I fear, encourage what I consider to be a practice of dubious validity, unless it is made clear that the Point is without merit only because not properly preserved and was not reached on the merits for that reason.
The opinion of the court in ruling this Point applied the rule of evidence that opinions of a physician may be drawn from facts which he has observed in the course of his examination and evidence, which he has heard and read “assuming that it is in the record and assuming it is true.” However, what the opinion fails to point out is that the information upon which Dr. Amin was permitted to form his opinion included a record entry made by a physician whose credibility the State refused to stand behind. It was for this reason that the State used the vehicle of the Homer G. Phillips Hospital record entry made by Dr. McKinney to get before the jury his impressions and findings when he examined Miss Chestnut’s eyes on September 23, 1971, on admission, without subjecting him to the vagaries of confrontation and cross-examination.
The record entries made by Dr. McKinney were incorporated into the hypothetical question propounded to Dr. Amin and he necessarily based his opinion upon those record entries that the lacerations he observed the day following Miss Chestnut’s admission and after she had undergone surgery were the same lacerations observed by Dr. McKinney. The validity of Dr. Amin’s opinion is dependent in part at least upon the integrity of Dr. McKinney’s record entries of September 23, 1971. This is the same Dr. McKinney the State refused to produce as a State’s witness in persona since it would not vouch for his credibility because he would thereby be exposed to cross-examination with respect to the contradiction in his testimony before the Grand Jury which returned this Indictment and his testimony at the two prior trials with respect to the question of whether the lacerations in Miss Chestnut’s eyes were delib*663erate in nature. Whether the lacerations were deliberately inflicted was an issue in the assault case at that time. It was not until later that this Count was dismissed.
The divisional opinion approves reception into evidence of the record entries made by Dr. McKinney by reason of the Uniform Business Records As Evidence Act, §§ 490.-660-490.690 RSMo.1969, and states that the hospital record was qualified thereunder, offered and admitted into evidence without objection for the sole purpose of the Business Records Act. The hospital record was not received for all purposes. This conclusion is further fortified by the conference in chambers which almost immediately followed the offer and acceptance of the hospital record into evidence, wherein appellant’s trial counsel directed his objections to Dr. Amin testifying concerning the condition of Miss Chestnut’s eyes at the time of her admission into the hospital since he admittedly did not see her until the following day. It was during this conference that Mr. Fredericks, the State’s trial counsel, stated that it was his intention to have Dr. Amin “review the hospital records and see if he recognizes the signature of Dr. McKinney and those things Dr. McKinney wrote in the record upon his findings in initial examination.” When this was accomplished, the prosecutor proposed to have Dr. McKinney’s entries read into the record “so it would be part of the hypothetical presented to Dr. Amin.” Appellant’s trial counsel objected to this procedure on the grounds it would deny him his right to confrontation and cross-examination.
The Uniform Business Records As Evidence Act does not make admissible that which otherwise would be inadmissible. Stewart v. Sioux City & New Orleans Barge Lines, Inc., 431 S.W.2d 205, 210[12] (Mo.1968). It is no grounds for objection to the admissibility of a hospital record qualified under the Act that it deprives a defendant of his constitutionally guaranteed right to confrontation secured by Art. 1, Sec. 18(a) of the Constitution of Missouri, 1945. State v. Durham, 418 S.W.2d 23, 29—31[14—21] (Mo.1967). See also, Anno. 69 A.L.R.3rd 22, Admissibility under business entry statutes of hospital records in criminal case. Therefore the trial court properly overruled this objection.
However, throughout these discussions ran the thread that the State was attempting to do indirectly what it could not, or would not, do directly; i. e. obtain evidence of a witness for whose testimony it would not vouch. It is this situation I believe to be one where the Business Records Act may not make admissible that which would otherwise be inadmissible. Stewart v. Sioux City & New Orleans Barge Lines, Inc., supra.
My colleagues, in their opinion, have approved the method employed by the State whereby the opinion of Dr. Amin on a condition he did not observe was elicited by use of a hypothetical question incorporating record entries made by Dr. McKinney. As they have also recognized, the rendering of an opinion under those circumstances assumes that the information furnished the physician used in formulating his opinion was in the record and “is true.” The incongruity of the procedure used by the State in its effort to get before the jury the findings of Dr. McKinney without producing him as a State’s witness should now be evident. On the one hand, the State contends Dr. McKinney’s entry in the hospital record is true; on the other hand, the State refuses to call him as a witness because it will not vouch for his credibility. The State would enjoy the verity of the record entry extended to records made in the regular course of the business of the hospital by reason of the Uniform Business Records As Evidence Act to get into evidence the opinion of Dr. Amin based in part on the hospital record entry made by a physician for whose credibility it will not vouch. This question the opinion of the court did not resolve.
For the aforesaid reasons, although I concur in the result reached, I cannot concur in the reasoning employed to pass upon a Point, or sub-point, I do not believe was ripe for decision because not properly preserved for review by this court.