State v. Clark

723 S.W.2d 17, 1986 Mo. App. LEXIS 4859
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided October 21, 1986·No. 49778·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

CARL R. GAERTNER, Presiding Judge.

Defendant was convicted of driving while intoxicated under § 577.010(1), RSMo.1978, after a trial by jury. He appeals pro se, claiming: (1) the trial court erred in admitting into evidence breathalyzer test results, (2) his conviction violated the prohibition of double jeopardy in the U.S. Constitution, (3) he was denied a speedy trial, (4) a mistrial should have been granted due to prosecuto-rial misconduct, and (5) his conviction was based on insufficient evidence. We affirm.

On February 25, 1984, Saint Louis Police Officer James Mulford pulled over defendant’s vehicle on suspicion of speeding. When he approached the vehicle to request a driver’s license, Mulford smelled alcohol on defendant’s breath. The officer then had defendant perform several field sobriety tests, during which he noticed that defendant hesitated before performing some of the requested acts, slurred his speech and staggered as he walked. At that time, defendant admitted to having consumed six beers that evening. After the field sobriety tests, Officer Mulford concluded that defendant was legally intoxicated and arrested him on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, taking him to the police station, There, at Mulford’s request defendant submitted to a breath test which showed his blood alcohol content to be .208 of one percent, well above the .10 of one percent which is prima facie evidence of intoxication at the time of the sample. § 577.030(3).

On March 14,1984, three weeks after his arrest and nine months before trial defendant sent a letter by certified mail to the St. Louis Police Department requesting extensive information regarding the breathalyzer machine and testing procedures. 1 Fifteen days later, defendant sent another certified letter to the police department requesting the same information. The record does not indicate any response to these letters. The prosecutor admitted that defendant never received any information concerning the breathalyzer machine.

I.

Defendant contends the state's failure to respond to his letters constitutes a violation of § 577.020.6, which provides that “[u]pon the request of the person who is tested, full information concerning the test shall be made available to him.” In arguing that it was error to deny his motion to suppress the evidence of the breathalyzer test, he relies upon State v. Paul, 437 S.W.2d 98 (Mo.App.1969) where this court considered *19 an earlier form of the statute. 2 Writing for the court in Paul Judge Clemens concluded it was the intent of the legislature that subsection four of the statute he construed as a discovery procedure and, although the statute did not say so, that the exclusionary rule should apply in the case of noncompliance. This conclusion was predicated upon the concept that the purpose of the statute was “to give the accused a pretrial look at information available to the State to convict him.” Id. at 101. Judge Clemens also observed that “[o]ur legislature is not blind to the trend away from ‘the sporting theory of justice’ and ‘trial by ambush’ and toward trials conducted as openhanded searches for truth.” Id. at 103.

Subsequent to the Paul decision, the Supreme Court of Missouri adopted Rules 25.32 and 25.33, effective July 1, 1974, which for the first time provided for disclosure to a defendant by the state in felony cases. In 1980 these rules were made applicable to misdemeanor cases as well as felonies, and the numbers were changed to 25.03 and 25.04.

The adoption of these disclosure rules is perhaps an explanation for the surprising fact that since Paul neither § 577.020.6 nor its predecessors have been considered in any reported decision except State v. Calvert, 682 S.W.2d 474 (Mo. banc 1984). In Calvert the defendant relied upon Paul in support of his contention that the state’s failure to respond to a Rule 25.04 discovery motion seeking information concerning a breathalyzer machine mandated suppression of the test results even in the absence of any showing of prejudice. The Supreme Court held this reliance to be misplaced because Paul did not relate to a Rule 25.04 motion for discovery even though the motion in that case cited § 577.020.4 (now § 577.020.6). Calvert at 479. The Supreme Court expressed neither approval nor disapproval of the Paul interpretation of legislative intent and we do not read Calvert to implicitly infuse continuing vitality into the statutory construction adopted in Paul. On the contrary, implicit in the Calvert opinion is the recognition that discovery in criminal proceeding is governed by Supreme Court rules notwithstanding statutory interpretations made prior to adoption of the rules.

Art. V, sec. 5 of the Missouri Constitution expressly grants the Supreme Court power to establish rules of procedure subject to amendment or annulment by legislative enactment of a law limited to that purpose. Where there is a conflict between a rule and a statute, a duly enacted rule not expressly annulled or amended by a later act of the legislature supersedes an inconsistent statute. State ex rel. Peabody Coal Company v. Powell, 574 S.W.2d 423, 426 (Mo.banc 1978). Such is the case here. The Paul construction of the earlier form of the present § 577.020.6 as evidencing a legislative intent “to give the accused a pretrial look at the information available to the state to convict him” is inconsistent and in conflict with Rule 25, which was adopted five years after Paul and brought matters of discovery in criminal proceedings under the supervision and control of the court. Under Paul, the state is required to furnish a defendant with any and all information concerning the breathalyzer which might be requested, without limitation. Under Rule 25.04, however, such a request is subject to a judicial determination of reasonableness, relevance and materiality. Paul read into the statute an unexpressed but mandatory exclusionary rule as the sole sanction for noncompliance with a discovery request while Rule 25.16 provides various alternative sanctions which the court may impose as it finds just and appropriate.

*20 Since the adoption of Rule 25 in 1974, the Missouri legislature has thrice addressed the Implied Consent Law and continued to reenact subsections identical in substance to § 564.441(4), RSMo.Cum. Supp.1967, which was interpreted in Paul. 3 The legislature has made no mention of Rule 25 in these reenactments, however, and the absence of any expressed intention to amend or annul this procedural rule duly adopted by the Supreme Court, Rule 25 subjecting discovery in criminal proceedings, including D.W.I.

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