State v. Moore
2008 Mo. App. LEXIS 1134, 264 S.W.3d 657, 2008 WL 3905960 (2008)
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Rule of Law:
A defendant asserting an insanity defense must overcome a strong legal presumption of sanity by a preponderance of the evidence, and the trier of fact is not bound by expert testimony, especially if diagnoses are based primarily on observations after the crime; additionally, evidence of a defendant's mental condition both before and after the offense is admissible as relevant to the overall determination of mental capacity at the time of the crime.
Facts:
- On the afternoon of August 8, 2004, Anthony Moore picked up his two-year-old daughter, Toni Moore, from her mother, Stephanie Jones-Phillips, who did not notice anything unusual in his behavior.
- Later that afternoon, Moore picked up his nine-month-old daughter, Kanyé Anderson, from her mother, Iesha Anderson, who also testified that Moore was behaving normally.
- Toni and Kanyé stayed overnight with Moore at his step-mother's house, where Moore and his sisters fed, bathed, and played with the children on the morning of August 9, 2004, with no one noticing anything strange about Moore's behavior.
- At approximately 11:00 a.m. on August 9, 2004, Moore left the house with the children, intending to have them professionally photographed.
- Around 1:30 p.m. that day, Moore called Ms. Jones-Phillips and asked her to pick up Toni, but when she said she was at work, he replied, 'Never mind,' speaking in a normal speech and tone.
- Around 3:00 p.m., Moore drove his car down a boat ramp into the mud of the Mississippi River, removed Toni and Kanyé from the car, carried them to the front, and killed them by holding their faces in the mud until they suffocated.
- A witness, Adrian Williams, saw Moore crying by his car and later walking out of the park covered in mud and 'uttering something' that did not make sense.
- Moore's aunt, Venita Burnett, and sisters, Tara and Tiarra Harris, found Moore walking down the street, covered in mud, foaming at the mouth, and speaking unintelligibly; they subsequently found Moore's car stuck in the mud and the children's bodies.
- Police officers located Moore, observing him as sweaty, frothing at the mouth, shouting, clenching his fists, and appearing to be in a violent rage; he charged at Detective Robert Robinson's car and had to be subdued with a Taser after ignoring commands.
- After Moore was subdued, his sisters informed the officers that he had just killed his children.
Procedural Posture:
- The State charged Anthony Moore with two counts of murder in the first degree.
- Anthony Moore waived his right to a trial by jury.
- The trial court, acting as the trier of fact, tried the case on April 9 and 10, 2007.
- At trial, Moore presented testimony from two psychiatrists to support his defense of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
- The trial court issued 'Findings of the Court,' finding Moore's acts were done knowingly and after deliberation, and determined that the defense's two expert witnesses were 'not credible' because their diagnoses were based primarily on observations after the children were killed.
- The trial court concluded that Moore's evidence was insufficient to rebut the legal presumption of sanity, found him guilty, and denied his motions for judgment of acquittal.
- On May 25, 2007, the trial court sentenced Moore to two concurrent terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
- Anthony Moore (Defendant) appealed the judgment of conviction to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District.
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Issue:
1. Did the trial court err in denying Anthony Moore's motions for judgment of acquittal, despite expert testimony supporting an insanity defense, where the court found the expert diagnoses not credible due to reliance on post-offense observations? 2. Did the trial court err in admitting evidence of Anthony Moore's mental condition months after the charged offenses?
Opinions:
Majority - Patricia L. Cohen
1. No, the trial court did not err in denying Anthony Moore's motions for judgment of acquittal. The court determined there was substantial evidence to find Moore was not suffering from a mental disease or defect excluding responsibility when he killed his children, upholding the trial court's rejection of expert testimony that relied primarily on post-offense observations. The court emphasized the strong legal presumption of sanity, which persists throughout a proceeding and can, by itself, sustain a finding of sanity even when a defendant presents substantial expert evidence to the contrary. The trial court, as the trier of fact, retains the discretion to accept or reject expert testimony regarding a mental disease or defect. In this case, the court noted that Moore’s family observed him behaving normally before the killings, and he made coherent phone calls between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on the day of the crimes. Furthermore, his medical records showed him to be oriented at the hospital. Crucially, the defense's own medical experts, Dr. Harry and Dr. Rabun, based their diagnoses primarily on observations of Moore's behavior after the killings and both acknowledged the possibility that Moore knew his actions were wrong at the time of the murders and that his disorganized behavior was a result of the trauma of committing the acts. This provided a sufficient basis for the trial court to conclude that Moore's evidence was insufficient to rebut the legal presumption of sanity. 2. No, the trial court did not err in admitting evidence of Anthony Moore's mental condition months after the charged offenses. Such evidence is relevant to determining whether a defendant suffered any continuing, permanent mental incapacity that would relate to the time of the homicides. The court reiterated that a trial court has considerable discretion in admitting evidence. For an insanity defense, the central inquiry is the defendant's mental state at the time of the crimes, and evidence of conduct and condition before, at the time of, and subsequent to the charged act is admissible to help determine this mental status. The testimony of Ms. Jones-Phillips and Ms. Anderson, the victims’ mothers, regarding their coherent conversations with Moore months after the murders, was logically relevant to assess whether he had a continuous mental incapacity or a brief, temporary one. Additionally, the court found no prejudice because Moore’s own expert witnesses, Drs. Harry and Rabun, testified without objection that Moore showed no psychotic or disorganized behavior during their examinations, had suffered no relapses since the murders, and was coherent at the hospital after the murders, confirming their opinion that his psychotic disorder was brief. Since this information was already before the court through the defense's own witnesses, its admission through the mothers' testimony was not prejudicial error.
Analysis:
This case significantly reinforces the high burden on defendants asserting an insanity defense in Missouri, underscoring the formidable strength of the statutory presumption of sanity. It clarifies that a trier of fact is not bound to accept expert testimony, especially if the experts' conclusions on mental disease or defect at the time of the crime are heavily predicated on post-crime observations, or if they concede the possibility of a post-traumatic onset of symptoms. Furthermore, the ruling confirms the broad admissibility of evidence concerning a defendant's mental condition both before and after the offense, as it can be relevant to assessing the defendant's mental state at the critical time of the crime, and it reiterates that a defendant cannot complain about admitted testimony if evidence of the same nature was introduced by the defense without objection.
