Court Opinion

ID: 9678660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:27:32.364465+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:06.811309
License: Public Domain

STEPHEN N. LIMBAUGH, JR., Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Just as I dissented in the Court’s reversal of the conviction and death sentence in the first trial, State v. Barriner, 34 S.W.3d 139, 153 (Mo. banc 2000), I must respectfully dissent in the reversal of the conviction and sentence in the second trial. The majority holds that “[tjhere is a reasonable probability that the trial court’s exclusion of the hair evidence affected the outcome of the trial.” I would hold instead that the hair evidence was irrelevant, that the trial court committed no error in refusing to admit the evidence, and that even if the evidence should have been admitted, the error was not sufficiently prejudicial to warrant a new trial.
I.
To be admissible, evidence must be both logically and legally relevant. State v. Tisius, 92 S.W.3d 751, 760 (Mo. banc 2002). After a review of the entire record, keeping in mind that all evidence and inferences therefrom are to be construed in favor of the trial court’s ruling, State v. Ervin, 979 S.W.2d 149, 160 (Mo. banc 1998), I would hold that the hair evidence at issue in this case is neither.
“Evidence is logically relevant if it tends to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence, or if it tends to corroborate evidence which itself is relevant and bears on the principal issue of the case.” Tisius, 92 S.W.3d at 760. Based on this definition, the majority concludes that the hair evidence excluded by the trial court — the hairs found on Candy Sisk’s leg and on the rope used to tie Irene Sisk — was logically relevant because it “could indicate another person’s interaction with the victims at the crime scene” and “tended to undercut the state’s theory that Barriner removed Candy’s clothes and that he bound Irene with rope.” This was evidence, in other words, that would support appellant’s theory that an unidentified third person committed the murders. The majority, however, reaches these conclusions only after first finding, erroneously so, that the evidence in the case established that the excluded hairs were tested against appellant and the victims, Candy and Irene, and shown not to belong to either. It arrives at this finding by plucking a single comment by the prosecutor from the record and labeling it as an “admission.” The rest of the record, however, refutes this finding.
The trial court considered the issue of the hair evidence three separate times during trial. The first instance occurred during the testimony of Officer Don Wind-ham, a Missouri Highway Patrol sergeant responsible for the collection of evidence at crime scenes and the officer who recovered the disputed hairs from the victims’ home. During cross-examination, defense counsel attempted to question Officer Windham about the disputed hairs, at which point the prosecutor objected, stating, “There has been no connection of the hair evidence in any of this to any individuals connected in this case.” Though the majority views this single statement as an *403“admission” by the State that the hairs were tested against and deemed to exclude both appellant and the victims, a more plausible reading of the statement — and one that is consistent with the trial court’s ultimate ruling — is that the prosecutor was merely stating that the hair evidence was not connected to anyone involved in the case because the hairs were not tested against anyone but appellant. That the prosecutor did not intend to imply that the hairs had been tested against and determined to exclude the victims is supported by the parties’ subsequent treatment of the issue.
In that regard, the issue next arose during defense counsel’s offer of proof of testimony by Officer William Randle, a qualified hair expert examiner and the technician who conducted the laboratory tests on the disputed hairs. Officer Ran-dle stated that he tested the hairs found on Candy’s leg and on the rope used to tie Irene against hair samples belonging to appellant. At no point, however, did Officer Randle state that the disputed hairs had been tested against samples belonging to the victims, and his lab reports — admitted as part of the offer — likewise give no indication that the disputed hairs, unlike other hairs found at the crime scene, were tested against hair samples belonging to the victims. In fact, in his report, Officer Randle concluded that the disputed hairs only excluded appellant.
Finally, in his Motion for Judgment of Acquittal/New Trial, appellant again raised the issue of the excluded hairs, stating that had he been allowed to present the hair evidence to the jury he would have argued that the hairs did not belong to appellant and, therefore, had to belong to either the victims or the unidentified killer. Thus, appellant, himself, acknowledges in his motion that the hairs had only been tested against and determined to exclude appellant, not the victims.
In view of those portions of the record that the majority chooses to ignore, the excluded hairs cannot be deemed logically relevant to any issue in this case. The hairs may well have come from the victims themselves, or even from their dog.1 But because the hairs were tested against appellant only, and were shown to exclude appellant only, the evidence proves nothing more than that appellant did not leave his hair on Candy’s leg or Irene’s rope. There is no exculpatory value to that evidence. Absent testing that would exclude the victims (and their dog), the evidence does not suggest the presence of a third party at the crime scene. For that reason, the evidence in no way “tends to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” Tisius, 92 S.W.3d at 760. Therefore, the hair evidence was not logically relevant.
With no logical relevance, the hair evidence can have no legal relevance either, for evidence is legally relevant only if its probative value (logical relevance) outweighs the costs associated with its admission, e.g., unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, waste of time, or cumulativeness. State v. Anderson, 76 S.W.3d 275, 276 (Mo. banc 2002). Here, even assuming that the hair evidence had some minimal probative value because it excluded the appellant, that value would have been outweighed by the risk that the jury would have been confused and misled by the evidence, in view of what the evidence did not exclude. The jury would have been left with hair evi*404dence that excluded appellant, may or may not have belonged to either or both of the victims, may or may not have been human, and may or may not have belonged to some unknown phantom killer. The hair evidence, then, is a red herring that is confusing and misleading. On the one hand, the jury would be confronted with evidence deemed by the court to be relevant and admissible, but on the other hand, there would be no way for the jury to comprehend the significance of the evidence. Under these circumstances, the trial court’s refusal to admit the evidence at trial was not error.
II.
Assuming arguendo that the trial court erred in failing to admit the hair evidence, in fight of the overwhelming evidence of appellant’s guilt, a reasonable probability that the error would have affected the outcome of the trial does not exist. See State v. Rutter, 98 S.W.3d 714, 728 (Mo. banc 2002); State v. Johnston, 957 S.W.2d 734, 744 (Mo. banc 1997); State v. Cook, 628 S.W.2d 657 (Mo. banc 1982).
In addressing the prejudice issue, the • majority summarizes the State’s evidence in a single paragraph and dismisses it as “not overwhelming.” In my view, that conclusion cannot be supported given the fact of defendant’s confession and the wealth of corroborative evidence. To recount that evidence in the same way as my dissent in the reversal of the first trial, I borrow from the points in the state’s brief — points that are amply supported by the record:
* Evidence directly corroborating factual details in appellant’s confession, including (1) the bank teller who cashed a check for a man in the company of Candy Sisk and driving a car identical in make, model and color to that driven by appellant, (2) the partially filled-out check found at the murder scene, (3) the man who saw Irene in the backseat of a fight-colored car near the bank two days before learning about the murders, [and (4) the absence of fingerprints and semen at the crime scene];
* Appellant’s statement that his motive for going to the Sisks’ residence was to take money and to get out of town because of his fear that he would not pass a urine test, corroborated by (1) the evidence above, (2) by the fact that the victims’ purses had been ransacked and (3) by the fact that after confessing to Officer Hinesly he observed that “the ironic thing” about his situation was that he had since learned that he probably wouldn’t have to go back to jail for “just failing one piss test”;
* Evidence suggesting that animus against Shirley Niswonger, Candy’s mother, may have been a possible motive for murdering the Sisks, including the fact that Niswonger had told appellant several months before the murder that she wanted to break up with appellant and that she was disturbed by a letter he wrote approximately a month before the murders and
* The fact that appellant had made repeated attempts to visit the Sisks the day before the murder, and his statement to Samantha Simmons that he was going to Tallapoosa because someone “owed him some money”;
* The fact that a car fitting the description of the one driven by appellant was seen driving slowly in front of the Sisk residence less than three hours before the victims’ bodies were discovered;
* The fact that the man who came to the Sisk house a short time later told Irene Sisk that he had “a Christmas gift for Candy from her mother in jail,” given that appellant was acquainted with *405Candy and had personal knowledge that her mother was incarcerated;
* The fact that this man drove a car of the same make, model and color as that driven by appellant;
* The presence of a number of blood spots and traces on the automobile that had been driven by appellant and that was found at appellant’s residence, and the fact that one of these blood samples was determined by DNA analysis to be consistent with a mixture of Irene Sisk’s blood and that of another;
* The fact that a microscopic analysis of the numerous ropes found at appellant’s residence established that two of them were consistent in color, composition and construction with the ropes that had been used to bind the victims;
* The discovery of notes in appellant’s room listing the name “Candace,” giving directions to the Sisk house, and describing preparations to be made for entry, including a gun, handcuffs and a rope, corroborated by appellant’s possession of handcuffs and rope and the use of rope to bind the victims;
* The fact that appellant told a friend the day before the murder that he had no money, contrasted with his multiple expenditures beginning only a few hours after the killings;
* Appellant’s display of a consciousness of guilt by checking into a motel, and appearing a “little edgy” while doing so instead of going to his home in the same city, a short time after the murders, and his telling of multiple inconsistent stories when questioned by police;
* Appellant’s possession or disposition shortly after the murders of numerous items that were consistent with having been fruits or instrumentalities of the crime, including a VCR, telephones, a videotape of “Independence Day.” Despite this corroborating evidence, the
majority discredits appellant’s confession on the basis that it was not taped and was received into evidence at trial “only through an officer’s testimony,” as if this fact makes the accuracy and voluntariness of the confession immediately suspect. By contrast, I reject the tacit suggestion that the police officer’s sworn testimony is not worthy of the credibility determination made by the jury that heard the testimony. After all, defense counsel cross-examined the officer at length regarding the procedures used during defendant’s interrogation. In any event, the corroboration evidence is of the strongest sort, and arguably, is alone sufficient to support the conviction.
For these reasons, I would affirm the conviction.

. According to the record, the victims owned a dog that was present during the murders. It is therefore possible, if not likely, that the hairs were animal, not human, in origin.