State v. Webb

569 S.W.3d 530
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 26, 2018
DocketWD 81004
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 569 S.W.3d 530 (State v. Webb) 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. Webb, 569 S.W.3d 530 (Mo. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

Karen King Mitchell, Chief Judge

Justin Webb appeals, following a jury trial, his convictions of second-degree (felony) murder, § 565.021.1(2),1 and first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, § 568.045.1(1), for which the court sentenced him to consecutive terms of thirty and seven years' imprisonment, respectively. Webb raises four claims on appeal: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions; (2) the trial court erred in admitting photographs of Victim after his death; (3) the trial court erred in admitting Victim's out-of-court statements to two of his teachers; and (4) the trial court violated Webb's Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment by sentencing him to a longer term of imprisonment than that of his co-perpetrator. Finding no error, we affirm.

Background2

On October 15, 2012, four-year-old Victim (born January 2, 2008) lived in an 1800-square-foot home in Holt, Missouri, with Webb (his father), Melissa Webb (Stepmother), and his younger brother (the child of Webb and Stepmother). That afternoon, around 1:30 p.m., Webb arrived home from work. Stepmother and Brother sat in the living room to play a board game, while Webb was doing something in the kitchen. Victim walked down the hall toward Stepmother and Brother when Stepmother approached Victim and kicked him, knocking him to the floor. Victim *535tried to get away, but Stepmother kept kicking him repeatedly between the legs and in the abdomen, eventually causing Victim to vomit between screams. Brother tried to get Webb to stop the attack, but Webb did nothing. Stepmother eventually stopped, and Victim stumbled outside and fell on his knees and then to the ground. Brother told Webb, who told Brother to get Stepmother. Victim's eyes were closed, and Webb did something to Victim's mouth that Brother described as "holding up his tongue," and that investigators later believed to be an effort at CPR.

A call was made to 911 around 3:15 p.m., reporting a four-year-old child who was not breathing. When paramedics arrived, they observed Stepmother on the front porch performing CPR on Victim, Webb standing by, restraining a dog, and Brother off to the side. One of the paramedics asked what happened, and neither Webb nor Stepmother responded. The paramedic asked again, and again neither responded. Eventually, the paramedic was advised that Victim "had been kicked in the head at the fair a couple of days ago, had woken up with a bellyache, and now this." The paramedic asked how long Victim had been down and not breathing, and neither Webb nor Stepmother responded. The paramedic asked a total of three times how long Victim had not been breathing, and she never received an answer. Victim's heart was not beating, which suggested to the paramedic that Victim had not been breathing for a while;3 she also observed dark discolorations around Victim's head. At that point, they put Victim in the ambulance and headed for the hospital.

On the way to the hospital, the paramedic tried to intubate Victim to get him oxygen, but she was unable to get his jaw open because it was rigid from the onset of rigor mortis.4 Upon removing Victim's clothing, the paramedic observed "bruising around the side of the head on the right side, behind both ears, [and] down the back of his neck"; she also observed that Victim's penis was bruised. Victim had a "coffee grounds appearance coming from his nose and his mouth," which the paramedic said was "sometimes an indication of internal bleeding." When they arrived at the hospital and rolled Victim over, the paramedic observed large bruises on Victim's buttocks and lower back.

At the hospital, three physicians and all of the nursing, respiratory, laboratory, and X-ray staff were assembled in preparation for Victim's arrival. Hospital staff again tried to secure Victim's airway but were unable to open his jaw. Hospital staff noted the onset of rigor mortis in other areas of Victim's body besides his jaw. Victim was pronounced dead at 3:50 p.m.

The medical examiner performed an autopsy of Victim the next day. The first thing the examiner noticed was that Victim was underweight. The examiner documented the following injuries to Victim:

Extensive contusions and abrasions were found on the back, sides, cheeks, chin, forehead, and temples of his head. His outer lips were bruised, and his inner lips were lacerated. Internal hemorrhaging was found on the posterior regions of his head and neck. He had extensive contusions and abrasions on *536the front, back, and sides of his torso, sacrum, and buttocks; his entire torso was discolored. His penis and scrotum were bruised, and his penis had two lacerations on its dorsal side. Multiple contusions and abrasions were located on all four of his limbs. Four healing broken ribs were discovered. Hemorrhages were found in his lungs, pancreas, diaphragm, and small bowel, and several lacerations located in multiple areas within his gastrointestinal system.

Victim had a thousand milliliters of blood in the abdomen, indicating that he had severe internal bleeding. The examiner determined that Victim's most significant injury-and the ultimate cause of his death-was a laceration in the small bowel. The examiner testified,

[I]njuries like this are caused by blows to the abdomen in young children, and what happens is that the skin surface is basically pushed all the way to the vertebral column, which is bone and it's hard. So all the tissues caught in between are split or torn or lacerated. So he has that kind of injury in the head of the pancreas; in the omentum, which hangs off of the stomach; the stomach is ruptured in two places; and the small bowel is split; and the tissue that supplies blood to the colon is also lacerated. So-and these are all organs that would have been caught-or, these are all tissues or organs that would have been caught between the blow and the vertebral column.

According to the examiner, a person suffering this kind of injury will "go into shock pretty rapidly, especially with this kind of blood loss."5 And, "the dumping of all of these intestinal contents free into the abdomen ... sets up a terrible infection, and that's what[ ] caus[ed] th[e] discoloration over [Victim's] abdomen." The examiner indicated that this kind of injury would be immediately symptomatic and cause extreme pain; he surmised that Victim would "probably be rolling around in pain until he passe[d] out."6 He further indicated that, if untreated, this kind of injury is fatal within a matter of hours. The examiner determined the cause of death to be "[b]lunt force injuries of the thorax and abdomen," and the manner of death to be homicide.

Two days after Victim's death, both Webb and Stepmother were interviewed by an investigator with the Major Case Squad. When asked about Victim's bruising, Webb claimed that Victim bruised easily, fell often, was easily injured, and had a high pain tolerance.7 Webb further explained that giving Victim Vitamin D milk helped lessen Victim's bruising, but they had been out of Vitamin D milk for over two weeks at the time of Victim's death. Webb suggested that Victim had a habit of chewing on his own lips and that a heart defect caused Victim to burn energy at a high rate, leading to Victim being underweight.

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Bluebook (online)
569 S.W.3d 530, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-webb-moctapp-2018.