Court Opinion

ID: 9639337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:12:59.16957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:15.969437
License: Public Domain

*7PATRICIA L. COHEN, Presiding Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result but write separately to express my variance with the majority’s analysis regarding two aspects of this opinion: (1) the standard of review and (2) the precedential value of Eason v. State, 52 S.W.3d 24 (Mo.App. E.D.2001).
The majority concludes that Defendant failed to properly preserve the issue of double jeopardy. Because the record demonstrates otherwise, I disagree.
The State initially indicted Defendant, acting alone, on one court of robbery in the first degree, as follows, in pertinent part: “the defendant forcibly stole U.S. currency in the possession of UMB Bank, and in the course thereof defendant was armed with a deadly weapon.” The State also charged Defendant with armed criminal action. Thereafter, the State filed an information in lieu of indictment charging one count of robbery first and one count of armed criminal action alleging that Defendant, acting with James Buettner, forcibly stole U.S. currency in the possession of UMB Bank.
On November 5, 2003, three days before trial, the State filed a superceding indictment which, for the first time, alleged two counts of robbery in the first degree alleging that Defendant, acting with James Bu-ettner “forcibly stole U.S. currency in the charge of Jeffrey Tandler.... ” (Count I) and “in the charge of Kim Stapleton” (Count III). On the first day of trial, after reviewing the new indictment for the first time, defense counsel objected contending that “two robbery in the first degree counts have been created and they were created to separate a forcible stealing ...” into different counts. More specifically, defense counsel argued that “Miss Staple-ton at no time was near any teller drawer or teller window and at no time was made to be the subject of having the U.S. currency forcibly stolen from her. Mr. Tan-dler was asked to move from one drawer to the other by Mr. Buettner.”
The trial court rejected the defense argument regarding the propriety of the indictment and proceeded to trial. At the close of all the evidence, defense counsel requested that the trial court dismiss the two counts related to Ms. Stapleton on the grounds that Ms. Stapleton did not have possession or control of the currency and that the force that was directed at Mr. Tandler did not transfer to Ms. Stapleton. In addition, at the instruction conference, defense counsel objected to the verdict director submitting the Stapleton counts and specifically raised a double jeopardy issue. The trial court responded, as follows:
Court reviewed Eason v. State, 52 S.W.3d 24, in which a gentleman forcibly robbed a woman at a retirement home. That woman then walked into another room where her mother was. The individual with the gun was not present. She took the ring off her finger, and that was two separate robberies and did not involve double jeopardy and the merger doctrine. Court also reviewed several cases involving bank robberies in which you could not charge a stealing from the two counts of one robbery for the individual teller and for the bank because they merge. But in this case, you have two individuals, different tellers that were involved. The evidence that the Court heard was that she ran out of the bank when she saw the individual’s with the masks as she knew a robbery was going to occur. So there was threat against her and she also heard this was a hold up or this was a robbery when she was leaving the bank. The court will permit the two robberies.
Finally, the defense counsel raised the issue again in the Motion for New Trial, *8specifically noting that Counts III and IV differed only from Counts I and II in that the property at issue came from two different bank drawers and that the trial court’s failure to dismiss Counts III and IV violated, among other things, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
There is no question that where the state splits one offense into several parts and prosecutes the defendant separately with respect to each part, the double jeopardy clause is implicated. See State v. Moton, 476 S.W.2d 785, 790 (Mo.1972). Here defense counsel specifically objected to the indictment on double jeopardy grounds as soon as counsel became aware of the existence of the superseding indictment. Defense counsel’s objection was unmistakably framed as a double jeopardy challenge: “two robbery in the first degree counts have been created and they were created to separate a forcible stealing. ...”
The trial court clearly understood that defense counsel was challenging the matter on double jeopardy grounds, discussed the double jeopardy issues, and overruled counsel’s objection to submitting the two counts at issue on the grounds of Eason v. State, 52 S.W.3d 24 (Mo.App. E.D.2001), a double jeopardy case. The purpose of the requirement of raising a constitutional challenge at the earliest possible time is to provide the trial judge with the opportunity to “correct errors and avoid prejudice in the first instance.” State v. Kenley, 952 S.W.2d 250, 260 (Mo. banc 1997). Here, the trial judge expressly considered the double jeopardy challenge at the earliest possible time and at all appropriate junctures thereafter. Accordingly, the issue before us was properly preserved.
I also write to emphasize that, particularly in light of this opinion, our decision in Eason should not be followed. Missouri courts have long held that the “distinctive characteristic” of the crime of robbery is “violence to the victim.” State v. Hayes, 518 S.W.2d 40, 45 (Mo.1975). Thus, the appropriate “unit of prosecution” for double jeopardy purposes is the person who is subject to the force. The majority opinion is consistent with these settled notions and accordingly stands for the proposition that the state cannot properly charge a defendant with two robberies when he uses or threatens to use force against only one person in an effort to cause such person to deliver-up property. To the extent that Eason can be construed to hold otherwise, it is wrongly decided.1

. In particular, I disagree with the Eason court's suggestion that White v. State, 694 S.W.2d 825 (Mo.App. E.D.1985) is no longer valid because of the repeal of Section 560.120 RSMo 1969 and the subsequent enactment of Section 569.030. See State v. Whitmore, 948 S.W.2d 643 (Mo.App. W.D.1997). The Eason court asserts that in the transition from Section 560.120 to Section 569.030 the word "that'' was eliminated, somehow altering the requirement that the subject of a robbery charge experience force. However, the word "that” does not appear in Section 560.120. Thus, it is not clear how the absence of a word that was never in the repealed statute could support such a drastic departure from settled law under the replacement statute.