Court Opinion

ID: 9644552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:59:15.19963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:14.780949
License: Public Domain

Robert L. Brown, Justice, concurring. I would reverse this case, but I would do so on the basis that the admission of Larry McGuire’s testimony violated Young’s privilege against self-incrimination — not on the basis of luminol testing. Larry McGuire’s testimony was important to the State and damaging to Young. McGuire testified that Young sold him a hunting dog which then turned up missing. Later, McGuire retrieved the dog from Jacobs’s premises after the murder. The fact that McGuire’s missing hunting dog had been sold by Young to Jacobs tied Young directly to Jacobs’s murder. It also provided a motive for the murder. Saline County investigators without question were lead to McGuire by Young’s statements after the grant of immunity. When that immunity was revoked, evidence gleaned under the cloak of immunity was not admissible absent an independent source for the testimony or prejudice. An objection was made at trial by the defense to McGuire’s testimony on that basis, and a hearing was conducted by the trial court in chambers. Neither an independent source for the McGuire testimony nor lack of prejudice was shown. Yet, the objection was overruled. The trial court abused its discretion in not excluding McGuire’s testimony, which to my way of thinking was clearly prejudicial. The fact that there was testimony from other dog owners does not minimize its grievous impact. Only McGuire testified that he bought a dog from Young which was then missing and ultimately found at Jacobs’s farm. The other Missouri residents testified that Young returned the dogs to them. They had given the dogs to Young either to sell on consignment or for breeding purposes. Reversal on the basis of the luminol testing is not warranted, however. There was testimony at Young’s trial by Kenneth Thomas Trimble, who was also charged and tried for the murder of Jacobs, that Young had blood on his clothes from the victim and even got some blood on Trimble when they scuffled briefly after the killing. The two men wearing bloody clothing then got in the truck. Trimble testified that he bought new clothes at a Wal-Mart store because of the bloody condition of Young’s clothes. That a substance found in the truck was initially screened for blood by luminol testing appears innocuous when Trimble’s testimony is factored into the equation. The majority writes that Trimble’s credibility was at issue, and the luminol test might have tipped the balance in the jury’s minds. But Trimble had already been convicted of Jacobs’s murder by the time of Young’s trial, and this fact was imparted to the jury on cross examination. Also, the fact that the luminol test was not conclusive for human blood, or even blood at all, was made clear to the jury by Dr. Whittle. Reversible error seems lacking under these circumstances. The luminol evidence was simply not sufficiently prejudicial to warrant a new trial.