Court Opinion

ID: 9665292
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:44:09.283129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:14.524908
License: Public Domain

BILLINGS, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. The past 15 or 20 years of post-conviction proceedings, particularly federal habeas corpus, have convinced me there is simply no such thing as finality in the criminal law arena. I suggest the finality of this Court’s affirmance of defendant’s life sentence for robbery will shortly be tested under our Rule 27.26 and, if relief is not forthcoming, the final judgment of Missouri’s highest court will be re-opened and re-examined by our federal brethren by way of habeas corpus.
In Sours I, and the cases it spawned, this Court misinterpreted and misapplied existing, substantive, federal constitutional law. Following that line of cases, this Court in 1981 reversed defendant’s armed criminal action conviction. Because the reversal was bottomed squarely on federal constitutional law and Missouri v. Hunter, — U.S. —, 103 S.Ct. 673, 74 L.Ed.2d 535 (1983), declared Sours I and its progeny to have resulted from “[A] misreading of our cases on the meaning of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment .... ” (103 S.Ct. at 677), the present Court should not hesitate to bite the bullet of prior marksmen and recall the mandate and affirm defendant’s armed criminal action conviction.
The principal opinion correctly observes that both society and the individual criminal defendant have an interest in obtaining a final and just resolution of criminal proceedings. I agree, but suggest the scales of justice should not be counter-balanced in favor of either society or the defendant. If we have the power to recall mandates to balance the scales for the defendant, then we should have the same power to recall mandates to balance them for society’s interests. A just resolution in this case dictates recall of the mandate. The final resolution of these criminal proceedings are probably light years away.