State v. Jordan

937 S.W.2d 262, 1996 Mo. App. LEXIS 1885, 1996 WL 663705
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided November 15, 1996·No. No. 20817·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

GARRISON, Judge.

Tommy Lee Jordan (Defendant) was convicted of first degree murder, § 565.020.1, and armed criminal action, § 571.015, RSMo 1994, for which he received sentences of life, without eligibility for parole, and twenty-five years, respectively.

Rick Brown (decedent), who lived in Kansas City, was previously married to Defendant’s wife, Kari, and was the father of her three-year-old son (C.B.). Defendant lived near Eminence, Missouri, with Kari, C.B., and Kari’s daughter.

Decedent was scheduled to pick up C.B. on December 31,1994 to exercise visitation privileges. When decedent arrived that morning at an apartment in Eminence where his girlfriend was staying, however, Defendant was waiting to tell him that he could not take C.B. According to Defendant, when he did so, decedent screamed that Defendant was going to die and started opening a shaving kit he was carrying. Defendant testified that he reached into his truck for a gun after pushing decedent to the ground and knocking the shaving kit from his hands. When he looked back, he saw that decedent was still on the ground but was turning to point a pistol at him.1 He said that he then shot decedent three times while he was on the ground and once after he got up. Decedent died as a result of the wounds he received.

At Defendant’s request, the trial court instructed on self-defense. In this appeal from his convictions, Defendant challenges the trial court’s exclusion of evidence which he says indicated that decedent had been sexually abusing C.B., and its admission of evidence concerning his prior arrest for DWT. We affirm.

In his first point on appeal, Defendant alleges error because the trial court sustained the State’s motion in limine and rejected his offer of proof concerning evidence that decedent had sexually abused C.B., an allegation which he says he communicated to decedent both before and at the time of the occurrence in question.2 In support, he contends that (1) when self-defense is an issue, all circumstances under which the homicide occurred are admissible, which would “throw light upon the transaction as it presented itself to [him], or could have affected him in his actions or apprehensions of danger”; (2) the evidence would have assisted the jury in deciding the veracity of Defendant’s testimony about the decedent’s actions and whether he would have reacted in an aggressive manner; and (3) the evidence was relevant to Defendant’s state of mind. As we understand the premise of Defendant’s point, it is that decedent would be expected to react violently if he had been told that Defendant had discovered decedent’s conduct with his son and was going to expose it.

In support of this contention, Defendant relies primarily on State v. Burns, 312 Mo. [264]*264673, 280 S.W. 1026 (1926), a case in which the defendant was convicted of assault with intent to kill. The evidence was that the victim was approaching defendant and his wife on the street; the victim had his hands in his pockets, and had an insolent attitude and “queer” look; and the defendant shot the victim when he saw his hands move and presumed he was about to draw a weapon. The trial court, however, had excluded evidence that the victim had earlier made improper advances toward the defendant’s wife which she reported to defendant, and that defendant had sent a third person to the victim to demand that he stop such conduct. The supreme court described the issue as whether the excluded evidence should have been admitted as tending to explain the defendant’s conduct when he shot the victim, to aid the jury in deciding who was the aggressor, and in determining the reasonableness of defendant’s fear. Id. 280 S.W. at 1029. It held that the exclusion of that evidence was reversible error. Id. 280 S.W. at 1033.

Factually, the instant case is distinguishable from Bums. Here, the jury heard other evidence of hostility between decedent and Defendant, including conduct and statements by decedent which Defendant understood to be threats that he would be shot. Defendant testified that he and Kari started living together before her marriage to decedent was dissolved, and hostility apparently developed between him and decedent over the next several months. At one point, Defendant was injured in a motorcycle accident and was told by a friend that decedent had said that he (decedent) was going to finish Defendant off with a lead pipe.

Defendant also testified about a phone conversation when he told decedent that he could not take C.B. to his home in Kansas City for extended visits unless he used a licensed day care center, whereupon decedent said, “I’ll pop a cap in your a_over this.” Defendant said he interpreted that as meaning decedent was going to shoot him. He also testified about an incident following a visit by himself, decedent and C.B. to a psychologist’s office in which decedent “pointed at me and went bang, bang, bang, and then he drove off.” This evidence alone may have been sufficient to demonstrate the animosity allegedly harbored by the decedent so that the exclusion of the evidence referred to in this point, even if error, may be considered harmless. See State v. Malone, 39 S.W.2d 786, 789 (Mo.1931).

Although Defendant includes the granting of the State’s motion in limine in his allegation of error, we note that the granting of such a motion is interlocutory only and does not, in itself, raise an issue for appeal. State v. Purlee, 839 S.W.2d 584, 592 (Mo. banc 1992). When a motion in limine is granted, the proponent of the evidence, in order to preserve the issue for appellate review, must attempt to present the excluded evidence at trial, and if an objection is sustained, must make an offer of proof. Id.

Defendant made an offer of proof concerning evidence of decedent’s sexual abuse of C.B., which was rejected by the trial court. Included was the testimony of Defendant, Kari, and her parents, presented out of the hearing of the jury. Kari’s parents testified about changes they noticed in C.B.’s behavior after having been with decedent, including anger and clinging to Defendant and Kari. Kari testified that after decedent’s visitations, C.B. could not sleep, he had nightmares, he would hide when he heard cars, and he became angry. She also said that when she would change C.B.’s diaper he would cover his penis and say “don’t bite,” and that he also stuck “his finger up his hind end and said it hurts.”

Defendant also testified as part of his offer. He said that when he was changing C.B.’s diaper after his first visit with decedent, C.B. “covered up himself and said, don’t bite pee pee, Da.” C.B. said the same thing on other occasions and would point at his rectum and say “hurt, Da, hurt.” He also said that he asked C.B. who was biting his “pee pee” and he said “Rick is, Da.” Defendant said that convinced him “that there was something going on that shouldn’t have been going on,” and that was “the reason [he] went to confront [decedent] that morning then, to stop the visitation.”

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State v. Jordan, 937 S.W.2d 262, 1996 Mo. App. LEXIS 1885, 1996 WL 663705 (Mo. Ct. App. 1996).

937 S.W.2d 262 (State v. Jordan) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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