State v. Robinson

811 S.W.2d 460, 1991 Mo. App. LEXIS 920, 1991 WL 104437
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 18, 1991
Docket55056
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 811 S.W.2d 460 (State v. Robinson) 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. Robinson, 811 S.W.2d 460, 1991 Mo. App. LEXIS 920, 1991 WL 104437 (Mo. Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

GARY M. GAERTNER, Presiding Judge.

Appellant, Eric Robinson, appeals his convictions in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis on four counts of robbery in the first degree, RSMo § 569.020 (1986), four counts of armed criminal action, RSMo § 571.015 (1986), and one count of assault in the first degree, RSMo § 565.050 (1986), for which he was sentenced to a total of twenty years imprisonment. Appellant also appeals the denial of his Rule 29.15 motion without an evidentiary hearing. We remand.

Shortly after midnight on September 20, 1986, George Daaboul, Alphons Torregros-sa, Gloria Maddalino and Russell Yenz, left their jobs at the Clarion Hotel in Downtown, St. Louis. The four walked to a parking lot between Fourth Street and Broadway to see Miss Maddalino’s new car. Mr. Venz and Mr. Torregrossa took the car out for a “spin” while Mr. Daaboul and Miss Maddalino waited in the parking lot.

Upon their return, appellant, wearing a stocking mask, approached the group carrying a gun in his hand. The appellant ordered the four on the ground and, when Mr. Daaboul was not quick to comply, appellant kicked Mr. Daaboul in the back. Mr. Daaboul testified that, prior to being kicked, he got a good look at appellant through appellant’s mask. The appellant carefully frisked each of the four victims, checking their pockets and inside their shirts. The appellant then told the group “this is the name of the game, if you raise your heads up, I’m going to burst your brains out.”

As appellant walked away from the group, Mr. Daaboul leapt up and, despite being shot at by appellant, got into his car and drove at the appellant. Appellant got into a car waiting nearby and a chase through the streets of St. Louis ensued. Mr. Daaboul testified that appellant, who was no longer wearing a mask, leaned out of the window of the getaway car and fired six shots in Mr. Daaboul’s direction. Two of these shots hit Mr. Daaboul’s car. Appellant’s car then pulled into a dark alley. Mr. Daaboul, wisely, decided not to follow. At a lineup conducted the next evening, all of the victims were able to positively identify the appellant as the robber. The appellant later told the police, although he was not the robber, he was driving the getaway car.

Appellant was indicted on May 28, 1987. The trial commenced on April 26, 1988, and continued until April 29, 1988, at which time the jury returned its verdict of guilty.

Appellant filed a timely pro se 29.15 motion on July 12, 1989. On September 11, 1989, a timely, yet unverified amended motion was filed. On September 24, 1990, the motion court issued its findings of fact and conclusions of law denying appellant’s post-conviction relief motion. This appeal followed.

One of appellant’s principal claims on appeal is the trial court erred in denying his motion to quash the jury panel when the State used all six of its peremptory challenges to remove blacks from the ve-nire.

The record reveals the original venire consisted of forty-two persons. Twenty-five members of the venire were black, seventeen white. The jury was selected *462 from the first thirty persons listed on the venire sheet. After strikes for cause, this group consisted of fifteen blacks and twelve whites. The State used all six of its peremptory strikes and its alternate strike to remove blacks from the venire. The appellant used one peremptory strike against a black venireperson.

Noting the victims in the case were all white, the appellant was black and the State’s peremptory strikes were all used on black venirepersons, the appellant moved to quash the jury panel pursuant to Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). The trial court refused to hear the State’s reasons for making its strikes and, relying on the final racial composition of the jury — seven blacks and five whites — and State v. Crump, 747 S.W.2d 193 (Mo.App., E.D.1988), the court denied the appellant’s Batson motion.

In Crump, the State used all of its peremptory strikes to remove blacks from the jury and obtained a final jury panel of five blacks and seven whites. On appeal, the defendant claimed the trial court erred in finding the State’s reasons for its strikes were race neutral. Crump, 747 S.W.2d at 195. This court determined the validity of the State’s reasons for the strikes did not have to be addressed in that “a black defendant cannot complain that he was denied equal protection of the law when he is tried by a jury which is forty-two percent black.” Id. The court further noted “the fact that five blacks remained on the jury panel after the prosecutor used her peremptory challenges undercuts any inference of discrimination that may arise.” Id. at 196.

The holding in Crump was more fully explained in State v. Vincent, 755 S.W.2d 400 (Mo.App., E.D.1988). In Vincent, the State again used all of its peremptory strikes to remove black jurors and again the jury consisted of five blacks and seven whites. In holding the defendant in such a case could not claim a deprivation of equal protection of the law, this court held that Batson only protects the defendant’s right to equal protection and does not protect the rights of minority members of the venire. Vincent, 755 S.W.2d at 403. “If the purpose is to protect the defendant’s rights, then it is difficult to perceive prejudice or a denial of his rights to equal protection when the jury contains a substantial representation of his race.” Id. at 402.

This understanding of Batson was dealt a fatal blow in Powers v. Ohio, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991). In Powers, the Supreme Court of the United States noted Batson was designed to serve “multiple ends, only one of which was to protect individual defendants from discrimination in the selection of jurors.” Powers, at -, 111 S.Ct. at 1368. Batson was also intended to protect excluded jurors and the community at large from discriminatory strikes. Id. Further, the defendant was a proper party to raise the third-party equal protection claim of jurors excluded due to their race. Id. at -, 111 S.Ct. at 1372.

In holding Batson protected the equal protection rights of the excluded venireper-sons as well as those of the defendant, Powers effectively overruled Crump and Vincent to the extent they held that a large number of blacks on the petit jury, in itself, prevented a defendant from pursuing a Batson claim.

As the defendant has standing to claim the equal protection rights of others, the trial court should have requested reasons for the strikes from the State pursuant to State v. Antwine, 743 S.W.2d 51, 64 (Mo. banc 1987).

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Bluebook (online)
811 S.W.2d 460, 1991 Mo. App. LEXIS 920, 1991 WL 104437, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-robinson-moctapp-1991.