Weaver v. Schaaf

520 S.W.2d 58, 1975 Mo. LEXIS 377
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 10, 1975
Docket58671
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 520 S.W.2d 58 (Weaver v. Schaaf) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Weaver v. Schaaf, 520 S.W.2d 58, 1975 Mo. LEXIS 377 (Mo. 1975).

Opinions

SEILER, Judge.

This is an original proceeding in prohibition, involving a double jeopardy question. Waller v. Florida, 397 U.S. 387, 90 S.Ct. 1184, 25 L.Ed.2d 435 (1970) held that a municipal ordinance conviction bars a subsequent state prosecution for the same offense. The state seeks to avoid this doctrine on the ground that the municipal conviction in this case was allegedly procured by collusion.

Petitioner, defendant in the felony case pending before respondent, seeks to prohibit any further proceeding therein. We issued our provisional rule, which we now make absolute.

[60]*60The facts come from a hearing on petitioner’s motion to dismiss the state charge, together with the exhibits there introduced, and from the petition for prohibition, the answer, and return to the preliminary writ. Both the municipal charge (city of Bridge-ton) and the state charge (St. Louis County) grow out of petitioner’s driving a motor vehicle on April 19, 1973 along a public highway, Fee Fee Road, in Bridgeton, St. Louis County, while in an intoxicated condition. There is no disagreement that the prosecutions are for the same act or transaction. Petitioner, while intoxicated, drove across the center line and sideswiped an oncoming car containing three persons.

Petitioner was arrested at the scene by Officer Ennis of the Bridgeton police department. Ennis promptly made out and signed a complaint against petitioner for violation of the Bridgeton ordinance prohibiting driving while intoxicated. This took place late in the afternoon of April 19 and Ennis, as was the usual practice, left the complaint for filing with the city clerk, whose customary routine was to place her signature attesting verification on such complaints the following morning. Although the court clerk testified that the complaint reached her desk on April 20, was filed and put in the court file by her, she evidently failed to affix her own signature, an omission corrected several months later as related below. The complaint was given No. 73-1497 and docketed on April 20.

Later in the evening of April 19, 1973, a St. Louis County magistrate who had released defendant on probation following a guilty plea to an earlier state driving while intoxicated charge, instructed the Bridge-ton police to produce defendant and the three witnesses before the magistrate the following morning for a probation revocation hearing. On April 20, 1973, after a hearing, the magistrate revoked petitioner’s probation and sentenced him to serve the 90 days in jail to which petitioner had earlier been sentenced.

On June 18, 1973, at the instigation of the above mentioned magistrate, the county prosecutor’s office was informed of the Bridgeton case. On or about June 21, 1973, petitioner, having received credit for good time served, completed his jail sentence imposed upon the April 20 revocation of probation. On June 22, 1973, the state filed a complaint in the same magistrate court, charging defendant with driving while intoxicated on the same occasion as earlier charged in the Bridgeton complaint. On July 2, 1973 Timothy A. Braun, as counsel for defendant appeared in the Bridgeton municipal court and stated that defendant desired to plead guilty to the ordinance violation.

The municipal judge, however, announced he would have to disqualify because he was acting as defendant’s attorney in a pending divorce case. Petitioner’s preliminary on the state charge was held July 27, 1973 and he was bound over. On August 1, 1973, the state filed an information in circuit court charging defendant with driving while intoxicated at the same time and place as charged in the Bridgeton complaint. On August 3, 1973, petitioner’s counsel wrote the municipal judge, asking for a setting, informed the court of the pending felony charge, and stated his hope the matter could be resolved promptly as “it would relieve Mr. Weaver of the felony charge now pending against him.” On August 6, 1973, defendant and counsel again appeared in municipal court and expressed a desire to plead guilty to the ordinance violation. On this date the municipal judge disqualified himself and set the case for a plea before an alternate judge for August 20. Under the Bridgeton charter, the municipal judge has authority to designate someone to act in his place, but there was difficulty in locating someone locally to serve, so the judge requested this court for an order and on November 27, 1973, we appointed Hon. Gene Pepka, who was municipal judge of Brentwood, to act in petitioner’s case. In the meantime, the state case had been continued a number of times [61]*61in circuit court. The reasons for the continuances do not appear but it is not contended that they were at the request of defendant.

On November 29, defendant and his attorney, the Bridgeton prosecutor Thomas Howe, and the alternate judge, Judge Pep-ka, were present in municipal court. November 29 was selected because it was the only date all parties were available. All were aware of the felony charge pending in circuit court. Defendant waived his right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him and his right to present evidence in his own behalf. He stipulated to the police report as a true version of what the city’s witnesses would testify to. The court reviewed the police report and the written statements of the three witnesses and found defendant guilty of driving while intoxicated on April 19, 1973 in violation of the Bridgeton ordinance. The court then, on the recommendation of the city prosecutor, sentenced the defendant to six months in jail, credited him with 38 days,1 suspended the execution of the remaining jail time, placed him on probation for one year and entered judgment accordingly.2

Fran Carpini, an assistant prosecuting attorney in St. Louis County, heard about the November 29th trial and on December 5 she went to the Bridgeton court and inspected the file. She discovered that no information had been filed and that the complaint, although signed by Officer En-nis, was unverified. She spoke with the Bridgeton prosecutor about the possibility that defendant would attack the case in circuit court on the ground of double jeopardy, but told Mr. Howe she thought the conviction could be set aside on the ground that no information had been filed on the charge in municipal court. She asked Mr. Howe not to file an information, but he said he did not know what he would do.

Petitioner’s counsel became aware of these developments, contacted Judge Pepka and prosecutor Howe and suggested that the case be heard again. Howe testified that “to obviate any question about it”, it was decided to do it over.

On December 11, the complaint signed by Officer Ennis was verified by the clerk and an information was filed by Mr. Howe. On December 17 there was a second trial. The same parties were present, and the same explanation of defendant’s rights and stipulations were made. Defendant was again found guilty and the same sentence was imposed as at the November 29 trial. Howe testified that the December 17th date was selected as being convenient; that he knew Bridgeton had jurisdiction originally and could make a case; that he knew of no law that required him to drop a prosecution because an assistant prosecutor asked him to do so; that defendant was in jail from April 20 to around June 20 on his probation revocation and then an additional 38 days on the state charge before he made bond.

[62]

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Weaver v. Schaaf
520 S.W.2d 58 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1975)

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Bluebook (online)
520 S.W.2d 58, 1975 Mo. LEXIS 377, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/weaver-v-schaaf-mo-1975.