Court Opinion

ID: 9672055
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:48:05.217463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:14.004987
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(dissenting).
As the majority opinion states, this is a circumstantial evidence case. I respectfully dissent because I do not believe that the evidence, as set forth in the majority opinion, meets the standard required for conviction on circumstantial evidence alone.
This standard, as set forth in an instruction in this case, is as follows:
“Where it is sought to convict a person by circumstantial evidence alone, in order to convict, the circumstances proven by the State must be consistent with each other *302and wholly inconsistent with the innocence of the accused, and incapable of explanation upon any other reasonable theory except that of his guilt.
“And in this case if the circumstances proven by the State can be explained upon any other reasonable theory except on that of defendant’s guilt, you should find him not guilty.”
This long established rule is a necessary corollary of the presumption of innocence, without which there can be no freedom in this state and country. When we start out, as we do, with the proposition that the defendant is to be presumed innocent until guilt is established in evidence, then it necessarily follows that in a case where the state is relying on circumstantial evidence to convict, but the circumstantial evidence is equally susceptible of an innocent interpretation, the state has failed to make a case.
In order to arrive at the conclusion that defendant intentionally shot and killed Donna Watts, the jury would have to make the following inferences: 1
1. That defendant was present when the shooting occurred.
2. That defendant had hold of the gun.
3. That defendant pointed the gun at Donna Watts and intentionally pulled the trigger.
4. That defendant fabricated the stories about the circumstances of the shooting and acted as he did after the shooting because he knew he was guilty.
The majority opinion says that “ . . . the acts and conduct of the appellant following the shooting were consistent with an attempt to remove suspicion from himself by fabricating a story of the event; by destroying the weapon; by attempting to destroy the bloody handkerchief; by throwing Donna’s purse on to the parking lot at the Gaslight Inn; and by trying to get another person to go along with his admitted lies.”
The opinion goes on to say that, “These facts are consistent with guilt, inconsistent with innocence, and not capable of explanation upon any other reasonable theory except that of guilt.”
However, there is no direct evidence in this case that defendant had hold of the gun or that he intentionally pointed it at Miss Watts and pulled the trigger. Both of these inferences have to rest on proposition No. 4 stated above, that the defendant fabricated stories and did the acts he did after the shooting because he knew he was guilty. The difficulty with this is that the stories told by defendant and his actions after the shooting are ambiguous — they can be explained as well on the theory that defendant was trying to divert suspicion from himself, not because he was guilty, but because he realized that suspicion would inevitably fall on. him, that he knew his protestations of innocence would depend on his word alone with no eyewitness to support him and feared the authorities would not believe the truth, that he was scared and panicky, and his ability to think calmly and cooly had disappeared. The statements and conduct relied on by the majority are equivocal.
The majority opinion relies on State v. Christian, 245 S.W.2d 895 (Mo.1952) for the proposition that, “An attempt to fabricate evidence is receivable as evidence of one’s guilt of the main facts charged”, and points out that the main fact charged in the present case is that defendant shot Donna Watts with a loaded gun and killed her. There are several important differences between State v. Christian and the present case. In the first place, it was conceded in the former that the state had made a submissible case. The only argument on appeal was over trial errors, and *303the above quotation related to admissibility of certain exhibits, not to whether there was a submissible case. In the second place, what the defendant attempted to do in State v. Christian was not ambiguous and susceptible of an innocent explanation, whereas the contrary is true here. In the Christian case defendant had written two notes to another inmate in the jail, trying to get the other inmates to agree to testify that money found in defendant’s possession and identified as money from the bank which defendant and two others had robbed, had been given to defendant by some unidentified third man, and that defendant had nothing to do with the bank robbery. This attempt to fabricate evidence was susceptible of no innocent explanation. That is not true of the conflicting stories and the actions taken by defendant in the present case. Everything that defendant did can be explained on the basis that he was innocent, but was fearful that no one would believe the true facts.
There is no evidence on which it can reasonably be said that anything occurred between defendant and Donna Watts sufficient to impel defendant to take her life or seal her lips. There is nothing to show animosity, angry hostility, emotion, or passion on the part of defendant likely to lead to murder. It may be that the evening had not been a social success and perhaps defendant did not intend to ask Miss Watts out again, but to say that there was the slightest motive for defendant intentionally to shoot and kill Donna Watts is farfetched to an extreme and not supported by any evidence.
Because of the ambiguous nature of the circumstantial evidence relied on to make a submissible case, consideration of the complete lack of motive of the defendant cannot be avoided in determining whether the circumstances are such as to be incapable of any reasonable explanation other than that of guilt. We know from common experience of life that sane men do not intentionally shoot other persons without a motive, even though motive is not an element of criminal homicide, and there are cases where guilt is so dearly established that motive becomes immaterial. But in this case guilt is not clearly established and absence of motive makes the circumstantial evidence even more ambiguous and equivocal.
With no motive to kill Miss Watts appearing, how can it be said that the particular circumstances relied on to convict the defendant are incapable of explanation upon any reasonable theory except that of guilt? If a motive had been established, then defendant’s statements and actions would lose their ambiguity and duplexity and would fit neatly as being consistent with guilt and inconsistent with innocence. Lack of motive is as much a fact as presence of motive would be. Lack of motive is consistent with innocence, not guilt, and this is especially true where the relationship between the two principals was as brief and casual as it was here. Absence of proof of motive under the facts of this case becomes a fact to be reckoned on the side of innocence. Therefore, in the face of lack of motive, the circumstances proven by the state lose their consistency with each other, because absence of motive is not consistent with fabricating evidence to divert suspicion because of knowledge of guilt. It should be said of this case, as was said in State v. Concelia, 250 Mo. 411, 424, 157 S.W. 778, 781 (1913), another circumstantial evidence case, “ . . . But when the facts exist in a case as they occur here, if there is no motive shown, no guilt can, with any sufficient legal certainty be attributed to defendant . . . ”
Two cases strongly relied on by the majority opinion are clearly distinguishable from the facts in the case at hand. One is State v. Paige, 446 S.W.2d 798 (Mo.1969), and the other is State v. Bayless, 363 Mo. 109, 240 S.W.2d 114 (1951). Both are circumstantial evidence cases where the proof is much stronger and more convincing than in the present case and where there was a definite motive shown. The majority opinion stresses the fact that in the Paige case *304the “murder” weapon was found in defendant’s possession. In both the Paige case and the Bayless case there was no doubt that the death of the victim came about through criminal, not innocent, means. The sole question was who had committed the murder, not whether or not there was a murder. In the Paige case, the victim was found under circumstances which ruled out suicide, although the victim had been shot through the head. In the Bayless case, the deceased had been choked to death and badly beaten. In the case before us, there is no question that Donna Watts was shot with defendant’s gun, but it would not be accurate to refer to it as the “murder” weapon in the sense used in the Paige case. The whole question here is whether the shooting was suicide, accidental, or intentionally done by defendant. Thus, defendant’s disposing of the gun does not carry with it all the significance that was legitimately attached to the finding of the gun in defendant’s possession in the Paige case and the subsequent disappearance of the gun.
There is not enough in this case in my opinion to overcome the presumption of innocence. The circumstantial evidence is equivocal. Convicting on equivocal circumstantial evidence is dangerous and always has been. Several centuries ago, in 1626, in a case occurring in Warwickshire reported in Coke Third Institute 232, an uncle, charged with the murder of a niece who had disappeared, produced another child to impersonate the niece. The fraud was discovered and the uncle was hanged. In truth, the niece had run away and at the age of 16 returned to claim her property.
While it is true defendant had an opportunity to commit the crime charged and his subsequent actions are bound to raise suspicions as to his conduct, it has long been the law in Missouri that circumstantial evidence showing opportunity and creating suspicion is not sufficient to make a sub-missible case, one of the latest cases so declaring being State v. Morse, 503 S.W.2d 450 (Mo.App.1973). The facts of the instant case bring it squarely within the rule stated in State v. Ruckman, 253 Mo. 487, 501, 161 S.W. 705, 708 (1913): “All the facts and circumstances shown by the state’s evidence could exist and yet the defendant be innocent of any crime. The evidence as a whole leaves too much room for doubt and mistake and does not possess sufficient proof of guilt to authorize the state to deprive defendant of his liberty.”
As I examine the facts before us the case should not have gone to the jury in the first place, but once it did I cannot but believe the jury permitted its suspicions of guilt to govern the verdict. These suspicions were very likely fortified in their eyes by the testimony that defendant referred to the deceased as a “bitch”, the fact defendant was 40 years of age while Miss Watts was only 19, and the speculative idea that if defendant had promptly obtained medical attention Miss Watts might not have died, none of which eliminates the legal inadequacies of this circumstantial evidence case.
In my opinion, on the evidence before us, the state has not carried its burden and the conviction should be reversed.

. Both the second degree and manslaughter instructions in this case required the jury to find defendant shot her “wilfully”, which was defined in the instructions as meaning “intentionally, not accidentally.”