Jackson v. State

538 S.W.3d 366
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 23, 2018
DocketWD 80072
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 538 S.W.3d 366 (Jackson v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jackson v. State, 538 S.W.3d 366 (Mo. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinions

James Edward Welsh, Judge

Bernard Jackson ("Jackson") appeals from the judgment of the circuit court of Jackson County denying his Rule 29.151 motion for post-conviction relief. Jackson was convicted by a jury of four counts of Class A felony robbery in the first degree, seven counts of Class A felony sodomy, and seven counts of Class A felony rape. On appeal, Jackson argues that the circuit court erred in denying him relief regarding the claim in his post-conviction motion that a juror serving at his trial committed misconduct by blogging about the case while it was being tried, thereby depriving him of due process. We affirm.

Factual Background

The Crimes and Trial2

As Jackson's claim on appeal alleges only juror misconduct at trial, a cursory *368review of the facts leading to his convictions is sufficient. In 1983 and 1984, four single women, all living in the Waldo/Armour Hills area of Kansas City, were attacked in their homes in the late evening and early morning hours. All four were blind-folded, robbed, sodomized, and repeatedly raped. In each case, after the assailant fled and the attack ended, the victim went to a hospital and underwent a "rape kit" examination, which included the collection of samples for use in DNA analysis. In several cases, additional DNA evidence, fingerprints, and hair samples were recovered from the scene of the crimes. The crimes remained unsolved for more than twenty-five years.

In 2010, a "cold case" squad again reviewed the files and ran the samples using more advanced DNA technology. The DNA analyses matched the biological samples of Jackson, which were located in the Missouri State Highway Patrol DNA database. In 2010, a grand jury indicted Jackson, and he was charged with four counts of robbery in the first degree, seven counts of forcible rape, and seven counts of sodomy, against the four victims. Following trial in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, a jury convicted Jackson of all counts. The circuit court found Jackson to be a prior and persistent sexual felony offender and sentenced Jackson to a life term for each of the eighteen counts with each of the eighteen life terms to run consecutively. This Court affirmed Jackson's convictions in State v. Jackson , 410 S.W.3d 204 (Mo. App. 2013).

Post-Conviction

Jackson timely filed his Rule 29.15 motion for post-conviction relief, which was subsequently timely amended by counsel ("Motion"). As relevant to his appeal, Jackson claimed in his Motion that Juror #8 ("the Juror") committed juror misconduct by recording her own notes during trial that she later published in an online blog following the close of trial. At the evidentiary hearing on his claim, a copy of Juror's blog was submitted as an exhibit. In addition, stipulations regarding the Juror's conduct were admitted into evidence. The stipulations provided the following:

(1) [The Juror] kept handwritten notes about her experience as a juror in a personal notebook.
(2) Except during the pretrial phase of the case, the entries made in this notebook were recorded in her hotel room after the conclusion of court on days in which notebook entries were made.
(3) After the trial began, the notebook in which these thoughts were recorded never left her hotel room until after the conclusion of the trial and her discharge as a juror.
(4) [The Juror] never personally shared her thoughts recorded in her personal notebook or showed the notes recorded in that notebook to any of her fellow jurors before, during, or after trial.
(5) [The Juror] has never personally spoken to any of her fellow jurors about the case since the trial concluded.
(6) The contents of the notebook were not posted on her blog until after the trial was over and until she had been discharged from her duties as a juror.
(7) The entries "Uncategorized," "Pre-Trial," "During the Trial," and "Post-Trial" at the end of each blog entry are titles of sections included within the blog, and do not reference or refer to the time frames when the entries were posted online.
*369(8) [The Juror] made her notes and posted her blog after the trial mainly as a way to communicate her experience with multiple interested parties without having to repeat it over and over again.
(9) During trial, including jury deliberations, [the Juror] was neither contacted by any unauthorized or [sic] party about the facts of the case, nor was she influenced by any outside information during the trial. In addition, she did not share any case-related information with anyone outside the jury room during the pendency of the trial or jury deliberations.
(10) [The Juror] did not talk about the facts of the case with her fellow jurors during the pendency of the trial until jury deliberations began and she did not form an opinion that Jackson was "guilty" or "not guilty" until after participating in deliberations with her fellow jurors and casting her final vote.

Jackson alleged the Juror's actions violated the circuit court's instructions to the jury and deprived him of due process.

The circuit court denied Jackson's post-conviction claim finding that he had not demonstrated how he was deprived of due process and a fair trial. The court also found that the claim was not cognizable in the post-conviction proceeding. Jackson now appeals.

Standard of Review

Our review of the circuit court's ruling on a Rule 29.15 motion is limited to determining whether its findings and conclusions are clearly erroneous. Rule 29.15(k). The circuit court's findings are presumed to be correct. Johnson v. State , 406 S.W.3d 892, 898 (Mo. banc 2013). Findings and conclusions are clearly erroneous only if, after reviewing the record, we are "left with a definite and firm impression that a mistake has been made." Id.

Analysis

In his sole point on appeal, Jackson argues the circuit court clearly erred in denying his claim that the Juror committed juror misconduct by engaging in behavior contrary to Instruction 1 (MAI 302.01), and its shortened recess reminders under MAI 300.04, that jurors not blog about a case while the case is being tried. Jackson argues that he was denied due process in that the Juror's recordation of notes that she intended to post in a blog at the conclusion of trial was contrary to the purpose of the instructions. Jackson argues that because of the high profile media attention given the case and some of the content of the blog, there is not confidence in the fairness and reliability of the jury's verdicts and it constitutes structural error requiring reversal.

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Related

Lance C. Shockley v. State of Missouri
579 S.W.3d 881 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 2019)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
538 S.W.3d 366, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jackson-v-state-moctapp-2018.