State v. Brown

457 S.W.3d 772, 2014 Mo. App. LEXIS 1289, 2014 WL 6464568
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided November 18, 2014·No. No. ED 100244·Published·Cited by 18 cases

Opinions

LAWRENCE E. MOONEY, JUDGE

The defendant, Demetrius A. Brown, appeals the judgment and sentence entered by the Circuit Court of St. Charles County following his conviction by a jury of two counts of second-degree burglary, in viola[776] tion of section 569.170 RSMo. (2000), and two counts of class-C felony stealing, in violation of section 570.030.3 RSMo. (Supp. 2010).1 The trial court sentenced the defendant as a prior and persistent offender to a total of twenty years of imprisonment.

Because the State failed to make a sub-missible case on count six — second-degree burglary of the sacristy of St. Peter Catholic Church — we reverse the defendant’s conviction on that count. Because the State failed to prove a value of $500 or more at the time of the offense for the television that the State charged the defendant with stealing in count seven, we amend the defendant’s conviction on count seven to the lesser-included offense of class-A misdemeanor stealing pursuant to section 570.030.8 RSMo. (Supp.2010) and remand this count to the trial court for re-sentencing.

We affirm the defendant’s other two convictions: second-degree burglary of the rectory at St. Peter Catholic Church charged in count one, and stealing a credit card from St. Peter’s charged in count two.

Facts

Viewed in the light most favorable to the judgment, the facts are as follows. On June 11th, 2011, Don Moxley, the business manager for St. Peter Catholic Church in St. Charles, Missouri, reported to police that a television was missing from the chapel.2 The television was a 32-inch Samsung, model number LN32A450, donated by a parishioner who had bought it in June 2008 for $749.99. One day before Mr. Moxley reported the television stolen, the defendant sold that same Samsung television to a pawn shop in St. Louis for $140.

On Saturday, June 18th, 2011, at approximately 9:00 a.m., Jennifer Lanteigne, a teacher at St. Peter School and a member of St. Peter Catholic Church, was praying in the chapel at the church. She heard someone enter and pace back and forth, and then she heard a loud rattling noise. She turned and saw the defendant in the hall outside the chapel, near the prayer candles and the candle-donation box. She did not recognize the defendant, and became concerned when she heard further pacing and rattling. She deliberately jangled her keys to indicate that she was leaving, and she left through the chapel’s front door. Ms. Lanteigne saw a white car occupied by a younger man parked next to her green minivan. She noticed that the white car had damage to the side rear, and she did not recall seeing a license plate. Ms. Lanteigne saw the defendant walk out the front door of the main church, and get into the white car.

Ms. Lanteigne drove next door to St. Peter’s rectory, which housed the priests’ residence and the church business offices, and told Father Fred Meyer what she had seen. Ms. Lanteigne and Father Meyer walked to the chapel hallway where Ms. Lanteigne had seen the defendant. They found that the wooden donation box for the prayer candles had been forced open, and contained no money.

Father Meyer returned to the rectory while Ms. Lanteigne left St. Peter’s church complex. As she drove by St. Peter’s school, however, Ms. Lanteigne saw the same white car in the school parking lot located directly behind the rectory. She saw the defendant carrying a black case and walking quickly from the rectory toward the white car. Ms. Lanteigne imme[777] diately returned to the rectory to check on the elderly Father Meyer. Father Meyer contacted Mr. Moxley, who called the police. Father Meyer discovered that a heavy outside door at the back of the rectory, normally kept locked and used only by the housekeeper, was partially open. Church personnel discovered that a laptop computer, a laptop case, a camera, cash, and a Lowe’s credit card had been taken from the rectory, and that, in addition to the candle-donation box having been emptied, a set of keys for both the church and the rectory were missing from the sacristy.

On June 21st, 2011, Carol Breckle, the director of religious education at St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church in St. Charles, was at the church when she received a call from the parish secretary saying that a man sought to enter the building, and that he matched the description of the man who had broken into St. Peter’s. Ms. Breckle saw the defendant try to open a set of locked side doors. He then got into a white car with body damage and no license plates and drove to another part of the budding. Ms. Breckle went to warn the maintenance man, Dave, what was happening, and heard the lid closing on the donation box in the hallway for the St. Vincent DePaul Society. She investigated, and saw the defendant standing near the donation box. The defendant told Ms. Breckle that Dave was right outside and had let him in, and the defendant then went into the church. Ms. Breckle followed the defendant, and watched him go quickly and directly to the front of the church and look in the candle-donation box. The defendant then went around the tabernacle, where the church keeps the communion host, and Ms. Breckle at that point insisted that the defendant leave immediately through the nearest doors.

On July 2nd, 2011, Officer Kenneth Mayer of the St. Charles Police Department noticed a white Ford Taurus with extensive body damage on its left rear side that matched the description of a car sought by police. Two men were inside the car. Officer Mayer followed the car, and pulled the car over when it entered a gas station. Officer Mayer spoke with the car’s driver, the defendant, and arrested him. In the white Taurus, police found among other items a white dress shirt and keys belonging to St. Peter’s, marked “rectory” and “church basement.”

Detective Sergeant David Kleinschmidt of the St. Charles Police Department investigated the burglary at St. Peter’s. During his investigation, Detective Kleinschmidt obtained surveillance video from St. Robert’s, which showed the white car that Ms. Breckle saw along with footage of the defendant. Detective Kleinsch-midt interviewed the defendant on July 2nd, 2011. At the time of his interview, the defendant wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves unbuttoned. The defendant told Detective Kleinschmidt that he was from St. Louis, and often went to a Baptist church. The defendant explained that sometimes, however, he would go to a church and put money in the donation box for prayer candles because he had recently received bad medical news. He said that it had been a month or so since he had been to St. Charles, and that he had been to two Catholic churches there. Detective Kleinschmidt told the defendant that a woman had seen him at St. Peter’s. The defendant acknowledged that he had seen the woman, that she saw him leave, that she herself left, and that she drove a green van. The defendant stated that he did not steal any candles or anything. He finally admitted that he had been inside St. Peter’s on June 18th, 2011 while his passenger stayed in the car. The defendant confirmed that he was in the surveil[778] lance footage from St. Robert’s and that he was driving the white car.

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State v. Brown, 457 S.W.3d 772, 2014 Mo. App. LEXIS 1289, 2014 WL 6464568 (Mo. Ct. App. 2014).

457 S.W.3d 772 (State v. Brown) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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