Court Opinion

ID: 9647940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:55:45.626429+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:54.736701
License: Public Domain

BARDGETT, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
*28The trial court erred in overruling the defendant’s objection to the prosecutor’s statement to the jury that “the police work through informants” and “They [the police] were — they received information that narcotics were being sold — heroin was being sold at 2918 Sheridan by Paul Brooks.” This was clearly hearsay and by this statement the prosecutor was asking the jury to give credence to the information received from an unidentified informant that a certain event was taking place — defendant was selling heroin at 2918 Sheridan. That is what the defendant was charged with doing and is precisely what the state sought to and did convict him of.
Later in the case a police officer was asked by the prosecutor how he first became aware of the house. Defendant’s objection to this question was sustained in part. The officer was permitted to say he had become aware of the house but was not permitted to say how he had become aware of it. The prosecutor at this point remarked that the judge’s ruling was inconsistent with his earlier ruling on the objection on this matter during opening statement and said that the prosecutor’s opening statement established what the confidential informant had said.
The principal opinion states the trial court erred in sustaining defendant’s objections to the police officer’s recitation of what the confidential informant told him. There is no authority cited in support of that holding. Indeed, there is none to support it.
I could understand, although perhaps not agree with, a holding that the prosecutor’s statement with reference to the informant’s identification of the defendant is not prejudicial error in view of other evidence. However, it is palpably incorrect to say that the state may inform the jury, through the statement of the prosecutor or by the testimony of a witness, that a person not called as a witness has told the police that the defendant was selling heroin. That is pure hearsay and it is sophistry to justify its admission on the basis that the underlying, but unspoken, reason for its admission is so that the jury will know why the police were keeping the house under surveillance. What the jury heard was that a person the police relied upon told the police that the defendant was selling heroin. To say that the jury would not consider that statement as some support for a finding that the defendant did sell heroin at that address is unrealistic.
One can assume that every time a police officer goes to a particular place in the course of his duties he does so for a reason. That reason will, more often than not, be the information he has received from others, perhaps informants, that a crime is or will be committed by someone. That information will always be something the state would like to tell the jury about — in opening statement or testimony — and it will almost always be hearsay and the defendant will be denied his right to cross-examine the one upon whose credibility the information depends.
The court erred in overruling the objection of the defendant. State v. Kirkland, 471 S.W.2d 191 (Mo.1971); State v. Chernick, 280 S.W.2d 56, 59 (Mo.1955).
The invitation found in the principal opinion to prosecutors to make statements and offer evidence as to what an unidentified third part tells the police, on the ground that the jury will better understand why the police went to a particular place or arrested an individual, without that person being subject to cross-examination, will be accepted. Its acceptance will result in numerous reversals.
This Court would not allow the plaintiff’s attorney in a damage suit to explain to the jury that the reason the police were at the scene was because somebody called the police and told them the defendant in the case had run a red light and might try to get away. Yet here the court allows the prosecutor to tell the jury that someone told the police the defendant was selling heroin. To allow this assertion of defendant’s guilt as to the offense charged in order to “explain” why the police were present at defendant’s house is a charade. The idea that such *29information will not be persuasive as to guilt is unrealistic.
I dissent.