The case concerned the State of Missouri's appeal of a trial court order dismissing burglary and harassment charges against respondent based on subdivisions (5) and (6) of the state's harassment statute, section 565.090.1, which the lower court found unconstitutionally vague and overbroad under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The charges stemmed from the respondent entering his former wife's home without permission and making repeated unwanted phone calls to her. On de novo review, the Missouri Supreme Court presumed the statute's constitutionality but examined whether its language could be narrowly construed to avoid punishing protected speech outside narrow categories like fighting words or true threats, while applying ordinary meaning to undefined terms. The court affirmed in part and reversed in part the dismissal order.
In State v. Clark, Jermane Clark was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action based primarily on the testimony of two witnesses, including Maurice Payne, who claimed to have seen the shooting. Clark's attorney was not allowed to cross-examine Payne about his hope that testifying would lead to leniency in his own pending sentencing on unrelated burglary and theft charges before the same judge. The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the conviction and remanded the case, holding that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding this evidence of potential bias, which violated Clark's confrontation rights. The court reasoned that a witness's subjective belief in possible favorable treatment can demonstrate bias even if unfounded, and given the lack of physical evidence and credibility issues with both witnesses, the restriction prejudiced the defense by preventing the jury from fully assessing Payne's reliability.
The case involved a wrongful death claim by Ronald Sanders against neurologist Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed and his professional association, alleging that a change in medication for his wife Paulette's seizure disorder caused elevated ammonia levels, irreversible brain damage, and her eventual death in 2005. A jury awarded over $10 million in damages, including $9.2 million in non-economic damages, but the trial court applied Missouri's statutory cap under section 538.210 to reduce the non-economic portion to about $1.26 million. Sanders challenged the cap's constitutionality, while the defendants sought further reductions for prior settlements under section 537.060 and periodic payments under section 538.220. The Missouri Supreme Court held that sections 538.210 and 538.220 are constitutional, reasoning that wrongful death actions are created by statute and thus subject to legislative limits on damages without violating rights to jury trial, equal protection, or separation of powers; the court affirmed the capped judgment in part but reversed and remanded for application of the settlement reduction.
Rickey Gurley applied for a Missouri private investigator license under a 2007 statutory scheme that made unlicensed practice a misdemeanor. The Board initially denied his application after a conference alleging a DPPA violation, but the Administrative Hearing Commission later ordered the license issued. Gurley sued in circuit court claiming the licensing statutes facially violated free speech protections under the U.S. and Missouri Constitutions and that the denial without prior hearing violated procedural due process. The circuit court dismissed the due process claim as moot once the license was granted and upheld the statutes against the free speech challenge. The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed, holding the procedural claim moot and finding no facial constitutional violation in the regulatory scheme.
In State v. Primm, the defendant appealed his convictions on ten counts of sexual abuse and related offenses against his grandnieces T.B. and R.C., both minors, based on incidents occurring in St. Louis City. The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding that evidence of uncharged acts in St. Louis County was properly admitted to show motive and provide context for the charged events, and that the victims' testimony provided sufficient evidence of penetration for each count of statutory rape. The court also found no error in the trial court's handling of the evidence or jury instructions. However, it remanded the case for a nunc pro tunc order to correct an inconsistency between the oral pronouncement and written judgment regarding the concurrency of sentences on certain counts.
The case concerned St. Louis County's establishment of eight trash collection areas in unincorporated parts of the county, under which the county awarded exclusive contracts to private haulers following a bidding process and barred other haulers from operating in those areas. Appellants, residents in the affected areas, sued to invalidate the program, claiming it violated a county charter provision requiring voter approval for districts funded by special assessments or service charges and a state statute requiring two years' notice to displaced private waste collectors. The Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed the trial court's dismissal, holding that the collection areas were not "districts" under the charter because residents contracted and paid haulers directly rather than through county-raised funds, that appellants lacked standing to enforce the notice statute, and that their Merchandising Practices Act claim was derivative and therefore also failed.