Court Opinion

ID: 9774907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:37:56.067868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:17.648085
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I respectfully dissent from the conclusion reached by the majority in Part I of the opinion of the Court. There was a variance between the crime charged in the information (first degree robbery while armed with a deadly weapon) and the crime submitted in the instruction (first degree robbery where, in the course of taking the property, the defendant caused serious physical injury to the victim). The majority concludes that this variance was not prejudicial to the rights of the accused and therefore did not constitute plain error. I agree with the majority on a series of its conclusions with respect to this issue as follows:
1. A defendant cannot be charged with one form of an offense and convicted of another. State v. White, 431 S.W.2d 182 (Mo.1968).
2. A variance between information and instruction is “fatal” because it prevents the defendant from receiving adequate notice of the crime charged. State v. Lusk, 452 S.W.2d 219 (Mo.1970).
3. The reason for the rule prohibiting such a variance is to provide notice to the defendant so that the defendant may prepare an adequate defense against the charges brought. White, 431 S.W.2d at 185-186.
4. Variance, alone, is not conclusive to the question of whether there is reversible error. To justify reversal, the variance must be material and prejudicial to the rights of the defendant.
5. The variance in this case was material because it affects whether the defendant received adequate notice from the information.
6. A material variance is not always prejudicial. A variance is prejudicial only if it affects the defendant’s ability adequately to defend against the charges presented in the information and given to the jury in the instruction.
The majority opinion then concludes that the variance from the charge in the information (defendant was armed with a deadly weapon during the commission of the crime) to the alternative statutory grounds submitted in the instruction (in the course of taking the property, the defendant caused serious physical injury to Richard Henges) was not prejudicial because:
There is absolutely no evidence of serious physical injury to Henges other than the gunshot wound to Henges’ head. The gunshot wound is the sole evidence by which the jury could have convicted appellant.
Op. at 651. Therefore, the majority finds that both the information and the instruction submitted essentially the same issue (the possession and use of a gun). As a result, the majority holds that the defendant’s ability to defend the charge was not affected by the variance.
I disagree with this conclusion for two reasons.
First, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that there was no evidence to support a finding of serious physical injury other than the gunshot wound. Dr. Bonita Peterson, M.D., a pathologist working as the Jackson County Medical Examiner, performed an autopsy on the body of Richard Henges. She testified that from an external examination of the body she observed, in addition to the gunshot wound, injuries of “a bruise and a skin scrape of the left shoulder, there was some skin scraping around the left eye and the left temple area, there were black eyes.... ” Ernest Johnson, who admitted he was one of the co-participants in the robbery, testified he grabbed Henges from the rear and held him “by the arms from the back.” He *656further testified that Reginald Hunter and Joseph Lee, the appellant, then started hitting Henges. Johnson said he then let go of Henges and went back to the car. According to Johnson’s testimony, Lee and Henges continued fighting after Johnson left. Reginald Hunter, the other State’s witness who had participated in the crime,1 testified that he grabbed Henges and wrestled him to the ground. Thus, the majority is incorrect in the basic premise for its conclusion that there was no evidence of serious physical injury other than the gunshot wound. Although an issue may be raised as to whether the non-gunshot injuries described constitute “serious” physical injury, I believe this is a question for the jury and, in any event, that the jury may have concluded this was its issue to decide.
Second, even if the majority were correct in concluding there was inadequate evidence of other serious physical injury, there certainly is no guarantee, or even any indication, that this jury necessarily limited its findings to matters supported by the evidence. The instructions, if proper, perform the function of limiting the jury’s findings to those conclusions which are supported by the evidence. An instruction which is so broad as to allow the jury to consider findings which are not supported by the evidence, as well as those that are, is erroneous as a roving commission. Paisley v. Kansas City Public Service Co., 351 Mo. 468,173 S.W.2d 33, 38 (Mo. banc 1943); Gillioz v. State Highway Comm’n, 348 Mo. 211, 153 S.W.2d 18, 26 (Mo. banc 1941); Powers v. Ellfeldt, 768 S.W.2d 142, 146-47 (Mo.App.1989). Once the State decided to change “armed with a deadly weapon,” as charged in the information, to submit “caused serious injury to Richard Henges,” it became necessary, if a fatal variance is to be avoided, to restrict the jury’s consideration in finding serious physical injury to the physical injury caused by the gunshot wound. This could have been done very simply by modifying the fourth paragraph of MAI-CR 323.02 to read as follows:
Fourth, that in the course of taking the property, the defendant caused serious physical injury by inflicting a gunshot wound to Richard Henges.
The failure to modify this instruction to avoid this roving commission results in a fatal variance between the crime charged in Count III of the indictment and the crime submitted in this instruction. The majority’s effort to resolve the variance problem by assuming that the jury limited its findings to injury by gunshot is doomed to failure because there was evidence of other injury and also because the instruction failed to limit the jury’s consideration to personal injuries caused by the gunshot wound.
Haying expressed my disagreement with the majority’s reasons for concluding the variance was not prejudicial, I conclude that the variance was prejudicial. The majority denounces speculation about what the jury might have done had they been instructed differently. Nevertheless, the majority engages in similar conjecture in determining what “serious physical injury” the jury found to have occurred. In so speculating, the majority reasons contrary to the only logical conclusion available: that the jury based its verdict of guilty upon serious personal injury other than the gunshot wound. The jury found Lee guilty under Count III (first degree robbery based on infliction of serious personal injury) but not guilty under Count IY (armed criminal action based on the first degree robbery , submitted in Count III as the underlying charge). The only way to reconcile these verdicts is to conclude that the jury believed that the defendant participated in the robbery but did not believe, or at least had a reasonable doubt, that the defendant had or used the gun in committing the robbery. To find Lee guilty of Count IV, the jury had only to find that Lee committed the offense of robbery charged in Count III and that he used a deadly weapon (the gun) in the robbery. Given the guilty verdict on Count III, the jury’s *657not-guilty finding on Count IV must, by necessity, turn on the jury’s finding concerning the defendant’s use of a gun. Any other conclusion as to the jury’s findings presupposes an inconsistent verdict between Count III and Count IV. Moreover, a jury finding that defendant was present and participated in the robbery but did not have or use the gun is consistent with the jury’s finding of not guilty on Count I (murder in the second degree) and on Count II (armed criminal action with the murder count as the underlying crime). Although the evidence may have supported a submission on all of the counts against Lee on the theory that he was a co-participant, the State neither charged nor submitted any of the counts on this theory. Thus, the State must rise or fall on its ability to carry the burden of proof that Lee committed each act, which constitutes a necessary element of the crimes charged.
Lee’s defense consisted primarily of contending that the State’s witnesses (Johnson and Hunter), who by their own testimony participated in the robbery, were unworthy of belief. The defense pointed out that Johnson and Hunter made a deal with the prosecutor for short sentences on a single count of robbery in exchange for their testimony implicating Lee as the trigger man. Hunter testified that the prosecutor agreed to recommend a sentence of six years on his plea of guilty to the robbery charge and agreed to dismiss the other charges. This agreement was contingent upon Hunter testifying at trial consistent with his prior statement that Lee had and used the gun. The prosecutor was to be the final judge of whether Hunter gave consistent, truthful testimony for purposes of this agreement. Johnson entered into a similar arrangement whereby he pled guilty to robbery, and the prosecutor agreed to recommend a sentence of five years. At the time of trial, neither Johnson nor Hunter had been sentenced. In closing argument, the defense argued that Johnson and Hunter, by their testimony, “took the gun out of their own hands and put it in Joseph Lee’s.... They got the deal from the prosecutor in return for taking the gun out of their own hands and putting it someplace else.” Later in the argument, defense counsel referred to Johnson and Hunter as “[t]wo admitted dealmakers who are trying to take the gun out of their hands so that they didn’t face a murder charge.”
The question comes down to whether the variance between the information and the instruction was prejudicial. This variance rendered Lee’s defense that he did not have or use the gun a nullity against the robbery charge. This variance required the defense to convince the jury that it should disbelieve Johnson and Hunter, not only as to their testimony that Lee was the trigger man, but also as to their testimony that Lee participated in the robbery. This constitutes prejudice.
Moreover, if the jury reached consistent verdicts, it believed the testimony of Johnson and Hunter that Lee participated in the robbery. The jury, however, was unwilling to believe Johnson and Hunter’s testimony, that Lee was the trigger man. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the jury made its finding of “serious physical injury” under Count III based upon the non-gunshot injuries. This finding is a material variance from the underlying element of the robbery as charged in the information which alleged that Lee was armed with a deadly weapon during the robbery.
All indications are that the jury seized upon this variance as the basis for its finding of guilty on the first degree robbery charge while returning not-guilty verdicts on the other three counts. There is a strong probability that this variance was the difference between a not-guilty verdict on the robbery count, under which Lee would have walked out of the courtroom a free man, as opposed to a verdict of guilty, under which Lee faces a thirty-year prison sentence. This constitutes the ultimate prejudice. By this variance, the State was allowed to change the theory of Count III. The information required the State to put the gun into the hands of Lee. The instruction allowed the State to meet its burden of proof on the robbery charge by showing that Lee participated in the robbery without regard to whether he had and used the gun. This variance was material and prejudicial and resulted in manifest *658injustice. As a result, the variance is reviewable for plain error under Rule 29-12(B).
I concur on the points covered in Parts II, III, IV and V of the majority opinion; I dissent from the majority’s holding in Part I. I would reverse the conviction of first degree robbery and remand for a new trial on that count.

. Neither the appellant, Joseph Lee, Jr., nor Stephen Davis, the fourth participant in the robbery under the version related by Johnson and Hunter, testified at the trial. Under the version related by Johnson and Hunter, Davis drove the car and stayed in the car during the robbery and altercation.