State v. Rogers

825 S.W.2d 49, 1992 Mo. App. LEXIS 311, 1992 WL 31096
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 25, 1992
DocketNo. WD 44,097
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 825 S.W.2d 49 (State v. Rogers) 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. Rogers, 825 S.W.2d 49, 1992 Mo. App. LEXIS 311, 1992 WL 31096 (Mo. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

SPINDEN, Judge.

Jeffery Rogers appeals his conviction and 10-year prison sentence for the Class A felony of knowingly possessing and controlling more than 500 marijuana plants in violation of § 195.223.8, RSMo 1986. We affirm the conviction and sentence.

Tipped by a suspicious neighbor, officers found more than 6000 marijuana plants being cultivated in a corn field on Rogers’ farm in Daviess County. They also found marijuana growing in areas other than the corn field, including 55 plants near a small camp where someone had pitched a tent. The soil around the marijuana was loose. No weeds were growing around the plants, and someone had fertilized many of them. Some of the plants were seven feet tall— nearly as tall as the corn.

At about 7 A.M. on September 21, 1989, officers posing as hunters went to Rogers’ house under the guise of asking him about hunting on the property. During their conversation, when Rogers acknowledged that he owned the farm and had planted the corn growing on it, they arrested him. The officers searched his house for other occupants. During the search, they saw several ash trays containing what appeared to be marijuana butts. They left the house without seizing anything and transported Rogers to jail.

Officers obtained a search warrant and searched Rogers’ house and several of his outbuildings. At that time they seized the butts from the ash trays and marijuana leaves lying on a windowsill. They cut [51]*51down the marijuana plants and loaded them on a flatbed truck. An officer took samples of the destroyed plants according to where they had been growing. They transported the plants to the Daviess County courthouse and then to Sheriff Tom Houghton’s house in Gallatin. There, the next morning, a sheriffs deputy filled three plastic trash bags with some of the plants. He placed samples from each bag into a small evidence bag. Officers, without authorization, then burned the remaining plants.

Rogers assigns six points of error in challenging the legality of his conviction. We will consider each point in the order raised in Rogers’ brief.

JURY VENIREMEN

Rogers asserts that a large number of adherents to the Amish faith live in Da-viess County, but the state’s method of selecting potential jurors from lists of persons with driver’s licenses systematically excluded all of them. Rogers complains, “[Tjhese persons have been excluded continually from the jury pools used to select petit juries, including Rogers’s jury, in violation of the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution.”

Even if we were to concur that the absence of Amish adherents from the jury venire was a constitutional violation, we would reject Rogers’ contention of error. To establish error, Rogers must show that the jury selection process systematically excludes a “distinctive group” of persons. Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979).

Rogers did not establish that any group—much less a distinctive group—was excluded. Rogers baldly asserts, with no proof whatsoever, that “the Amish in Da-viess County have been continually underrepresented in the jury pools of the county due to the system under which the jury pools are chosen.” Rogers tries to substitute logic for statistics. He reasons that driving an automobile is contrary to the Amish faith, and because the jury list is taken from a list of licensed drivers, it necessarily excludes all Amish. His logic might be sound, but it is based on an unsubstantiated assumption: Amish adherents shun automobiles. Rogers offers no proof of that assertion.

Rogers’ bald, unsubstantiated assertion is insufficient to meet his burden of proof. “The charge that a jury is unconstitutionally structured is not self-proving.” State v. Hayes, 713 S.W.2d 275, 278 (Mo.App.1986). Not only does Rogers not substantiate his assertion, but his own evidence contradicts it. He asked the circuit clerk, “And based upon your understanding of Amish people, do any of those people have driver’s licenses?” She answered, ‘T understand some do.”

SHERIFF PARTICIPATION IN JURY SELECTION

Rogers complains that Sheriff Hough-ton’s role of calling persons on the list of veniremen and telling them that they were being called for jury duty tainted the process sufficiently to constitute a denial his right to a fair trial. The courts have held that if a law enforcement officer who was involved in investigating a crime is also significantly involved in the selection of jurors, the danger that the officer will hand-pick jurors sympathetic to the prosecution is sufficiently great that it will render the process unconstitutional. Henson v. Wyrick, 634 F.2d 1080 (8th Cir.1980).

A three-person commission prepared a 67-name list of potential jurors for Rogers’ trial. Neither Sheriff Houghton nor any of his employees had any involvement in selecting the 67 names. The sheriff’s role merely was to call the individuals listed to alert them that they were being called for jury duty; he did not excuse anyone and had no authority to do so.

The sheriff selected none of the jurors. The process did not present a danger of a “conviction-prone jury.” We find no merit in Rogers’ contention of error.

STATE DISCOVERY VIOLATIONS

On October 5, 1989, more than 13 months before trial, Rogers filed a motion for disclosure which he says requested the [52]*52state to disclose any recorded statements or of any audio or video surveillance.1 Rule 25.03(A) provides:

Except as otherwise provided in these Rules as to protective orders, the state shall, upon written request of defendant’s counsel, disclose to defendant’s counsel such part or all of the following material and information within its possession or control designated in said request:
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(2) Any written or recorded statements and the substance of any oral statements made by the defendant or by a co-defendant, a list of all witnesses to the making, and a list of all witnesses to the acknowledgment, of such statements, and the last known addresses of such witnesses;
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(8) If there has been any photographic or electronic surveillance (including wiretapping), relating to the offense with which the defendant is charged, of the defendant or of conversations to which the defendant was a party or of his premises; this disclosure shall be in the form of a written statement by counsel for the state briefly setting forth the facts pertaining to the time, place, and persons making the same[.]

Although on at least three occasions state officers swore that the state had not taped any statements by Rogers, the prosecutor filed with the trial court during the trial’s second day a supplementary disclosure that he had been informed that officers had tape recorded their conversation with Rogers immediately before his arrest. The prosecutor told the court that the tape had been placed inadvertently in another case’s file.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
825 S.W.2d 49, 1992 Mo. App. LEXIS 311, 1992 WL 31096, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-rogers-moctapp-1992.