State v. Crudup

415 S.W.3d 170, 2013 WL 6449653, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1464
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 10, 2013
DocketNo. ED 99718
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 415 S.W.3d 170 (State v. Crudup) 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
State v. Crudup, 415 S.W.3d 170, 2013 WL 6449653, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1464 (Mo. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

GARY M. GAERTNER, JR., Judge.

Introduction

Billy H. Crudup (Crudup) appeals the trial court’s entry of judgment and sentence upon a jury’s verdict finding him guilty of domestic assault in the first degree, armed criminal action, and felonious restraint. On appeal, he asserts the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on a lesser-included offense and on the defense of self-defense, and in admitting certain evidence. We affirm.

Background

The State of Missouri charged Crudup as a prior and persistent offender with the class A felony of first-degree domestic assault, armed criminal action, the class C felony of felonious restraint, and forcible rape. The evidence adduced at trial revealed the following.

Crudup and Linda Bracely (Victim) began a romantic relationship in the summer of 2010. By November of 2010, Crudup would spend the night at the apartment Victim shared with Natasha Marshall (Marshall) two or three times a week. Victim testified that the following occurred on the night of November 30, 2010. Victim arrived home around 10:45 p.m. and discovered Crudup in her bedroom. They watched television for a while and Crudup used Victim’s mobile telephone. Crudup then requested her voicemail password so he could listen to her messages. When Victim refused, Crudup became angry. She attempted to leave the room, but he grabbed her arm. She slapped him, and he pushed her onto the bed, started choking her by putting his hands around her neck, and put a pillow over her face. She bit his left hand so he would get off of her, and he pushed her against the wall and choked her until she lost consciousness. Crudup then “destroyed everything” in her room: he cut the cord of her television and moved it in front of the door, blocking her in; he ripped the window screen with scissors; and he broke her eye glasses, collection of glass bottles, CDs, and DVDs.

Crudup hit Victim on the head with an unknown object, causing her to bleed. He made her remove her clothes and plugged in an iron, turning it on high. He again demanded to check her voicemail messages on her mobile telephone, and when she refused, he put the iron on her chest and breasts, burning her several times. Victim tried to call 911, but before she could get through he grabbed her telephone and broke it. He attempted to light her hair on fire with hairspray and a lighter, and he hit her in the nose with a screwdriver. Crudup tied Victim’s hands and feet, and raped her. He went to sleep and untied her in the morning, apologizing for breaking her glasses. Victim testified that at no time did she have a weapon in her hand, and she does not have a knife in her room. In the morning, after Victim heard Marshall get up, Victim moved the television from in front of her door, and she asked to use Marshall’s mobile telephone to call a friend to help her. Victim did not call 911 again until after Crudup had left the apartment. Victim did not report the rape to the police.

Victim identified pictures taken in the hospital documenting the puncture wound to her nose, bruises and nail marks on her neck, the laceration on the back of her [173]*173head, and the second degree burn marks on her chest. The wound on Victim’s head required a staple to close, and the burn marks left her with permanent scars.

Marshall testified that she heard Victim come into the apartment on November 30, 2010; however, she fell asleep and did not hear anything the rest of the night. She agreed that Victim asked to use her mobile telephone in the morning, and she noticed that in Victim’s room the television was blocking the door and there was Styrofoam on the floor, but she did not notice any injuries to Victim. On cross-examination, Marshall agreed she did not want to testify or be involved. The State asked if there was a history of domestic violence in her family. Counsel for Crudup objected and in a sidebar discussion, the State explained Marshall’s history could explain why she responded to the incident by tuning it out. The court allowed the question, noting that it went to the witness’s credibility and reason for testifying. Marshall confirmed that there was a history of domestic violence in her family. In the State’s closing statement, it argued that Marshall was telling the truth and explained, “[sjhe’s familiar with domestic violence.... It’s probably not the first night that she just went to sleep and blocked it all out, like she did on this night.”

Crudup testified to the following in his own defense. He and Victim were watching television when she received a voice-mail. He asked her to check it several times, and she got angry and smacked him six or seven times. After Victim told him she was using him, he got angry and tore up her room, trying to break everything that she loved. In trying to break the television, he dragged it to the floor. They were both shouting at each other and Victim was trying to stop him. Because she would not stop hitting him, he choked her into unconsciousness. When she was unconscious, she hit her head on the dresser. After she woke up, she continued punching him and he attempted to subdue her on the bed with a pillow until she bit him. To calm himself down, he continued to destroy the things in her room and call her names.

After calming down, he gathered up his belongings from her room and decided to iron his clothes for work the next morning. As he was ironing, Victim came at him with a knife, apparently not wearing any clothes. She cut him three times on the arm, and as he was trying to get the knife away from her, he accidentally burned her with the iron. He got the knife away and threw it out the window, and both he and Victim calmed down. He suggested they go the hospital, but she told him to wait until the morning. They made up and had consensual sex. Crudup identified two photographs of a scar on his arm from where Victim stabbed him with a knife.

During the jury instruction conference, counsel for Crudup offered, as relevant to the appeal, first, an instruction on Count I, domestic assault in the first degree, with a lawful self-defense tag. Second, he offered a general instruction on self-defense. Third, he offered an instruction on Count III, felonious restraint, for the lesser-in-eluded offense of false imprisonment. The trial court denied the instructions.

After the trial, the jury found Crudup guilty of first-degree domestic assault, armed criminal action, and felonious restraint, but not guilty of forcible rape. Crudup moved for a judgment of acquittal or in the alternative for a new trial, which the trial court denied. The trial court sentenced Crudup to thirty years in the Missouri Department of Corrections on the charges of first-degree domestic assault and armed criminal action, and seven years on the charge of felonious restraint, to be served concurrently. This appeal follows.

[174]*174 Discussion

Point I

In his first point on appeal, Crudup argues the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury for Count III, felonious restraint, on the lesser-included offense of false imprisonment. He asserts the evidence supported an acquittal of the higher offense and a conviction of the lesser offense, because although he knowingly restrained Victim, that restraint did not expose her to a substantial risk of serious physical injury. We disagree.

A defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser-included offense when the evidence establishes a basis for both an acquittal of the greater offense and a conviction of the lesser offense.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
415 S.W.3d 170, 2013 WL 6449653, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1464, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-crudup-moctapp-2013.