Court Opinion

ID: 9778068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:31:22.103362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:03.496012
License: Public Domain

GRIMM, Judge,
concurring.
I concur, except as to the reasoning of the majority in denying defendant’s second point that “This court is prohibited from declaring that the instruction adopted by the Supreme Court is erroneous.”
When MAI-CR 2d was approved by the Supreme Court of Missouri effective January 1,1979, it contained section 17.00, Supplemental Notes on Use. Subsection 3 thereof, entitled Reservation of Constitutional and other questions, says in part:
For the most part the Court has adopted the proposals of the Committee and Judge Houser for use by the bench and bar. This was done mthout judicially deciding or foreclosing any legal, constitutional, procedural, pleading, evi-dentiary, instructional or other issue which may arise in cases pleaded, tried or appealed under any laws covered by the MAI-CR and MACH-CR forms, even though, the forms and Notes on Use approved by the Court are followed and used (emphasis added).
Similar language appears in MAI-CR 3d, effective January 1, 1987, in the section “How to Use This Book,” pages XXXVIII-XXXIX. Although I am aware of many cases to the contrary, I believe that this court has the authority to review claims of error in MAI-CR, MAI-CR 2d, and MAI-CR 3d instructions. See the dissenting opinion of Dixon, J., in State v. Singer, 719 S.W.2d 818, 823 (Mo.App.W.D.1986), and the concurring opinion of Maus, J., in State v. Pendergrass, 726 S.W.2d 831, 834 (Mo.App.S.D.1987).