Court Opinion

ID: 9759799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:28:30.910809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:04.856720
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
concurring.
I wholly concur in the principal opinion. I also agree with Judge Billings that “State v. Stapleton ... was ill conceived ...,” that it is based on an unsound legal analysis, and that it and the eases following it should never have been engrafted on the jurisprudence of Missouri. I prefer to rest my concurrence on the reasons assigned by Judge Gunn in the principal opinion, because, under authority then controlling, the defendant could have had a new trial for the asking if the failure to give the manslaughter instruction had been included in the motion for new trial. If the trial court had not awarded this relief, it would have been forthcoming on appeal, as the cases cited in the principal opinion and in Judge Welliver’s dissent demonstrate.
The dissent does not properly reflect the standards appropriate to a post-conviction proceeding. All our careful rules about the preservation of claims of error would go for naught if the identical issues could be presented in a proceeding under Rule 27.26, simply by asserting that counsel had demonstrated incompetence in the very failure to preserve the points. Rules for preservation of error are designed to promote orderly trials and appeals and to provide the means for prompt correction of errors. Their elimination would be subversive of our system of criminal procedure.
The principal opinion, then, is eminently correct in requiring that a person seeking post-conviction relief on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel bear the burden of demonstrating that “there is a reasonable possibility that competent counsel could have obtained a different result.” It is not enough to show that a new trial could be had. The probable result is very important. The circuit court’s finding that there was no prejudice is amply supported by the evidence. My study of the trial transcript persuades me, not only that the appellant was competently represented during the first trial, but also that a manslaughter conviction on retrial would be virtually impossible, and an acquittal highly unlikely.
The offense in the present case was committed on December 31, 1974. The opinion affirming the conviction was handed down December 27, 1976. The state’s very thorough evidence is probably sufficiently preserved in the transcript, but the state’s situation certainly would not be improved if it were required to retry the defendant at this late date. The delay factor demonstrates another reason why the defendant should have to bear a substantial burden when he now seeks a new trial on grounds *510which could have been advanced during the initial proceedings.
The judgment is properly affirmed.