Court Opinion

ID: 9679924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:12:58.651915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:23.413888
License: Public Domain

KENNETH W. SHRUM, Special Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the principal opinion. I write separately for the following two-reasons.
Fust, with regard to the remand issue, i.e., whether trial counsel was ineffective in his conduct and decision relating to Ervin’s alleged threat against and attack on his cellmate, I agree with the principal opinion’s directive that the motion court should allow Ervin and the State to present additional evidence, if they so choose. However, because additional evidence may be adduced, I respectfully depart from the principal opinion to the extent that it strongly suggests to the motion court the disposition it should make of this issue.
Second, I am persuaded that the principal opinion’s reliance on the law review article cited in n. 4 is misplaced. This follows because this article analyzed information collected from a sample size of only 152 respondents who served on juries in 36 capital cases in California and interviewed during 1991-92. Scott E. Sundby, The Jury As Cntic: An Empirical Look At How Capital Juries Perceive Expert and Lay Testimony, 83 Va. L.Rev. 1109, 1113, and n. 14 (1997). The sample upon which the article was based was selected from The Capital Jury Project. Id. at 1112. The law review article has no reliable data to show that the conclusions reached from data collected from California jurors is generalizable to Missouri jurors, or for that matter, to jurors of any state other than California. To so generalize would cut against the entire spirit and purpose of The Capital Jury Project. See William J. Bowers, The Capital Jury Project: Rationale, Design, and Preview of Early Findings, 70 Ind. L.J. 1043 (1995). “State-specific data are used to address particular issues of interest in the respective states.” Id. at 1077. For these reasons, I depart from the principal opinion to the extent that it relies on the law review article to support the comment made in n. 4.