Court Opinion

ID: 9771735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:52:16.776229+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:35.927313
License: Public Domain

SMITH,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
As appellate judges, we are frequently required to determine whether the evidence in a criminal case is sufficient to establish a level of malevolence necessary for a particular grade of a crime. Normally, the determination is based upon the intent of the defendant, for that establishes the level of malevolence. Were that the determination to be made in this case I would have no difficulty in affirming these convictions, for I have little question that smashing a person in the face with a beer bottle carries such potential for serious injury or death that such conduct establishes an evilness sufficient to justify felony status.
That is not, however, the issue before us. The General Assembly has chosen to establish the line between felony reckless assault and misdemeanor reckless assault as the degree of injury actually inflicted, not that which could have been expected from the reckless conduct. §§ 565.060(3) and' 565.070(1) RSMo 1994. The former section imposes felony liability if the defendant recklessly causes serious physical injury to another while the latter requires only physical injury.
Both terms are defined in § 556.061. “Physical injury” means physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical condition. § 556.061(20). “Serious physical injury” embodies one of three types of injury. It is an injury that (1) creates a substantial risk of death or (2) causes serious disfigurement or (3) causes protracted loss or impairment of the function of any part of the body. § 556.061(28). (Emphasis supplied). Because the three alternatives are utilized to increase substantially the level of criminality of defendant’s conduct and the sentence imposed for that conduct, I must assume that it was the legislative belief that the three alternatives were essentially equivalents as to severity of injury. The emphasized words all convey a level of injury rising above mere physical injury into the category of severe or serious injury.
A scar is by definition a disfigurement. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, p. 2025. For a scar to be a serious disfigurement it must be a serious scar. If every scar is sufficient to be a serious disfigurement then the adjective “serious” used in the statute has no meaning. While the question is normally one of fact, it is the burden of the state to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the requisite level of injury required for conviction of a felony has occurred. There must be some threshold level of injury, below which, as a matter of law, no felony has been committed. From the wording of the statute it would appear to me the level of disfigurement must be something corresponding to “substantial risk of death” or “protracted loss or impairment of the function of any part of the body”.
The photographs referred to in the majority opinion are of the injuries to the victims from the assault taken immediately after the assault; they do not purport to show the scars which form the basis for a claim of serious disfigurement. The wounds incurred are as described in the majority opinion, but no evidence was adduced on record of the size of the scars resulting from those wounds. The trial court made no finding and gave no description of the scars, other than that it could see the one on Hickman. The *542entire description of the scar on Hickman was:
“Q. Okay. You still have any scars on your face from where you were bleeding? A. Yes, I do.
Q. Could you point them out for us please?
A. Scar underneath my chin here (indicating).
Q. Any others?
A. No.”
The entire testimony on the Young scar was:
“Q. How many minutes or hours did they work on you picking the glass out?
A. Probably about an hour.
Q. Okay. All of this was while you didn’t have any painkiller?
A. No painkiller until they actually gave me stitches in my chin. I don’t recall how many there were. I remember him saying I had a double layer of cuts. To this day I have like a ledge on my chin and every morning I have to look at myself in the mirror, see this thing covered (indicating). They stitched it and pulled it up. That whole thing.
Q. Are there any other places you still have marks from?
A. Up between my eyes where glass cut in there.
Q. You can see all those marks still to this day?
A. I see all those marks until this day.
Q. It’s kind of given you the double-chin look?
A. Yes.”
I am unable to find in this evidence a basis for a holding that either victim sustained “serious disfigurement” within the meaning of the statute. Nothing in the testimony establishes a scarring of such a serious nature as to be equivalent to “substantial risk of death” or “protracted loss or impairment of the function of any part of the body”. Nor can I agree with the majority that the loss of a portion of a molar, one of the back three teeth in the jaw and not commonly visible, can be considered in assessing serious disfigurement. The cases cited by the majority involved more serious scarring than that testified to in this case. In two of those cases (State v. Williams, 740 S.W.2d 244 (Mo.App.1987); State v. Williams, 784 S.W.2d 309 (Mo.App.1990)) the holding relied on by the majority was dicta because the issue to be decided was intent to cause serious disfigurement, not whether serious disfigurement actually occurred.
The thrust of the majority opinion is that no matter how little evidence of serious disfigurement is in the record, if the trial court, and presumably the jury, observed the victim, the finding of serious disfigurement is beyond appellate review. I think the right of appeal requires more than that.
I would reverse the convictions of felony assault and armed criminal action, and would enter convictions of misdemeanor assault as to both victims and remand for resentencing.