Court Opinion

ID: 9684963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:19:56.402187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:19.072453
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Judge,
dissenting.
This case demonstrates that the Court continues to hold that first degree murder both is and is not a lesser included offense of capital murder. The principal opinion relies on State v. Goddard, 649 S.W.2d 882 (Mo. banc 1983) [No. 63476], to hold that appellant was properly convicted of first degree murder under a charge of capital murder. Since I was unable to persuade a majority of the Court with my dissent in Goddard, normally I would accede to the will of the majority and, bound by Goddard, concur in the principal opinion. The Court itself, however, has not consistently followed Goddard. Instead it has applied State v. Baker, 636 S.W.2d 902, 904-05 (Mo. banc 1982), cert, denied,-U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 834, 74 L.Ed.2d 1027 (1983), either retroactively or prospectively solely to affirm the conviction before the Court at the moment. I cannot in good conscience join such inconsistency, which in my view has long since become a violation of both due process and equal protection. I am compelled to continue to voice my dissent.
I
A review of our recent cases addressing the relationship between capital murder and first degree murder demonstrates the Court’s vacillation.
Our cases prior to Baker held that first degree murder was a lesser included offense of capital murder under § 556.046, RSMo 1978, the current lesser included offenses statute effective January 1, 1979. State v. Daugherty, 631 S.W.2d 637, 645 (Mo.1982); State v. Fuhr, 626 S.W.2d 379, 379 (Mo.1982). Baker recognized that those cases erroneously relied on cases that interpreted a previous, and different, lesser included offenses statute. Baker held that first degree murder is not a lesser included offense of capital murder under § 556.046 and that Baker, who received the death penalty, had not been entitled to an instruction on first degree murder under a charge of capital murder. 636 S.W.2d at 904-05.
Thereafter in three cases convictions were affirmed on the authority of Baker. *680State v. Betts, 646 S.W.2d 94, 96 (Mo. banc 1982); State v. Woods, 639 S.W.2d 818, 819 (Mo.1982); State v. Blair, 638 S.W.2d 739, 747 (Mo. banc 1982), cert denied,-U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 838, 74 L.Ed.2d 1030 (1983). Each case clearly applied Baker retroactively. Baker was decided August 23, 1982, while the trials in Betts, Woods, and Blair each occurred before that date. See Betts, 646 S.W.2d at 95; Blair, 638 S.W.2d at 746; Brief of Appellant at 4-5; State v. Woods, 639 S.W.2d 818 (Mo.1982). In fact, Betts specifically noted that “Baker was in effect at the time of trial” in October 1980. 646 S.W.2d at 96. That language can be read only as a retroactive application of Baker.
The Court began to find problems with the Baker holding, however, when it was faced with a case such as this one in which the defendant had been charged with capital murder and convicted of first degree murder. Trial courts are without subject matter jurisdiction to convict defendants of crimes with which they are not charged. State v. Gladies, 456 S.W.2d 23, 25 (Mo.1970); Montgomery v. State, 454 S.W.2d 571, 574-75 (Mo.1970). If first degree murder is not a lesser included offense of capital murder, a defendant convicted of first degree murder under a charge of capital murder is denied due process of law because he is convicted of a crime with which he is not charged. DeJonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 362, 57 S.Ct. 255, 259, 81 L.Ed. 278 (1937); Goddard, 649 S.W.2d at 891 (Welliver, J., dissenting); State v. Wilkerson, 616 S.W.2d 829, 833 (Mo. banc 1981); State v. Smith, 592 S.W.2d 165,165 (Mo. banc 1979). In order to avoid this result the Court in Goddard held that Baker was to be applied prospectively from the date it was decided and not retroactively to January 1, 1979, the effective date of § 556.046. Goddard, 649 S.W.2d at 889. Significantly, the opinion made no mention of the prior contrary holdings in Betts, Woods, and Blair. By applying Baker prospectively, the Court in essence held that the Baker rule was created for the sole purpose of affirming Baker’s conviction and death sentence. The Goddard rationale served both to affirm Goddard’s conviction and keep Baker’s conviction and death sentence intact.
Goddard itself caused the Court problems almost immediately. The defendant in State v. Williams, 652 S.W.2d 102 (Mo. banc 1983), a kidnapping-murder case, was charged with and convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. The trial court refused to instruct the jury on first degree murder. The Court ignored Goddard, which it had decided only one month earlier, and found no error in the failure to instruct the jury on first degree murder even though the trial had been held almost a year before Baker was decided. Williams, 652 S.W.2d at 114. In fact, the Court relied squarely on Baker, Betts, and Blair, applying Baker retroactively despite my argument in dissent that to do so was inconsistent with Goddard.
The principal opinion in this case exacerbates the confusion by once again applying Baker prospectively. By doing so appellant’s conviction can be affirmed. Interestingly, the principal opinion relies on both Goddard and Betts, cases that can in no way be reconciled. The principal opinion states that Betts “also [gave] Baker prospective application,” but that statement flatly contradicts the plain language of Betts. See Betts, 646 S.W.2d at 96.
II
I submit that Goddard, Williams, and the principal opinion rest solely on the unarticu-lated premise that the defendant in each case is guilty and that his conviction should be affirmed at any cost. Such result oriented decisionmaking is not justice. “We are bound to decide cases in accordance with principles of justice and not on the basis of our own perception of guilt or innocence.” Goddard, 649 S.W.2d at 892 (Welliver, J., dissenting). The majority has ignored this fundamental precept. Instead, it has treated similarly situated defendants differently in a transparent effort to avoid granting them new trials. Whether Baker is to be applied retroactively or prospectively is a question of state law, but whenever the application of state law trammels federal *681constitutional rights the question becomes one of federal constitutional law. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 21, 87 S.Ct. 824, 826,17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Therein lies the “catch-22 into which the majority has written the Court in an effort to affirm criminal convictions.” Goddard, 649 S.W.2d at 890 (Welliver, J., dissenting). The disparate treatment of similarly situated defendants, such as Goddard and Holland on the one hand and Williams on the other, manifestly breaches the guarantee of equal protection of the laws to one group of defendants or the other. Concomitantly, the process afforded — either instruction on and conviction of first degree murder or failure to instruct on that offense — deprives defendants on one hand or the other of due process of law.
Our government was created as one of laws and not of men. The majority has frustrated this framework by substituting its own judgment of guilt for the rule of law. That is not the function of this Court. We are not guardians of society. Our duty is to dispense justice evenhandedly in accordance with established principles of law. Inconsistent application of those principles is tantamount to nonapplication of those principles. What Judge Learned Hand said a quarter century ago applies with equal force today. “For myself,” he said, “it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Plantonic Guardians, even if I knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not.” L. Hand, The Bill of Rights 73 (1958). See also Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 242,102 S.Ct. 2382, 2408, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982) (Burger, C.J. dissenting).
I cannot join in holding that under the same statute, § 556.046, first degree murder both is and is not a lesser included offense of capital murder.1 I therefore respectfully dissent.2

. I concurred in Baker. I also concurred in Blair and wrote the opinion in Woods, both of which applied Baker retroactively. I joined Senior Judge Seiler’s dissent in Betts, but that dissent rested on grounds other than the application of Baker.
My views regarding the continued viability of Baker are set forth in my Goddard dissent and need not be fully detailed here. See Goddard, 649 S.W.2d at 891 (Welliver, J., dissenting). It suffices to say that I have concluded that it might be appropriate to overrule Baker and construe § 556.046 as reflecting a legislative intent that § 556.046 work no change in the law that existed at the time of its enactment. Id. at 892 (Welliver, J., dissenting).
I adhere, however, to my position in Goddard that § 556.046 must apply to all cases in which trials were held after January 1, 1979, the date § 556.046 became effective. The statute cannot mean one thing in one case and something else in another. Particularly is this true when, as with this issue, we deal with cases in which the death penalty has been imposed. As noted above, Goddard in effect held that the rule in Baker was created to permit affirmance of Baker’s conviction and death sentence. Blair’s trial occurred before Baker was decided, and thus, under Goddard, Blair should have received an instruction on first degree murder. Williams ignored Goddard in order to affirm another death sentence. Three men, therefore, are currently scheduled to die by reason of the Court’s vacillation.

. The legislative effort to solve this problem is embodied in H.C.S.S.C.S.S.B. 276, sec. 1, §§ 565.020-.025, 82d Gen.Assem., 1st Reg. Sess. (1983), signed by the Governor June 15. The bill becomes effective July 1, 1984. Id. sec. A. The effective date of this legislation leaves a full year for the further compounding of the error caused by the Court’s vacillation on this matter.