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State v. Beck7/26/2005
be kept and confined in an institution to be designated by the Missouri Department of Corrections for a term of three years unless sooner discharged according to law.
Section 558.011 sets forth the authorized punishments, inter alia, for class B and class C felonies, providing:
1. The authorized terms of imprisonment, including both prison and conditional release terms, are:
(2) For a class B felony, a term of years not less than five years and not to exceed fifteen years;
(3) For a class C felony, a term of years not to exceed seven years;
Thus, by sentencing the appellant to three years in prison, the trial court sentenced him as though he had been convicted of a class C felony, rather than a class B felony, as indicated in its judgment. Given this fact, along with the trial court's express declaration that it was entering judgment in accordance with the jury's verdict, it is readily apparent that the trial court, in its form judgment entry, mistakenly checked the box indicating that the appellant was convicted of assault in the first degree.
As a general rule, where there is a material discrepancy between the oral pronouncement of the trial court's judgment and sentence, and the written judgment entry, the oral pronouncement controls. Collins, 154 S.W.3d at 492 (citingState v. Patterson, 959 S.W.2d 940, 941 (Mo. App. 1998)). The reason for that being that a judgment derives its force from the rendition of the court's judicial act and not from the ministerial act of its entry upon the record. Id. Consequently, here, the trial court's judgment entry was in obvious error as to the class of felony of which the appellant was convicted. To allow that judgment to stand would result in a clear miscarriage of justice in that it would memorialize a conviction of the appellant that never occurred. Hence, in reviewing the appellant's claims, we review on the premise that he was convicted of the class C felony of assault in the second degree, not the class B felony of assault in the first degree, as indicated in the trial court's form judgment entry.
II.
In Point I, the appellant challenges the State's argument to the jury at trial as to the law of self-defense, on which the jury was instructed in Instruction No. 11. More specifically, he attacks the State's argument to the jury interpreting the law of that instruction. In Point II, he challenges whether Instruction No. 11, which he proffered and was patterned after MAI-CR 3d 306.06,correctly advised the jury of the law of self-defense, as found in section 563.031 and applied to the specific facts of his case. Given these challenges, we necessarily discuss Point II first so as to determine the law of self-defense, as applied in this case and on which the determination of Point I depends for resolution.
In Point II, the appellant claims that the trial court plainly erred in failing to modify, sua sponte,his self-defense instruction, Instruction No. 11, to instruct the jury that it could consider not only the actions of the victim, but the victim's friends, in determining whether the appellant acted in self-defense in stabbing the victim, because without modification, MAI-CR 3d 306.06, contrary to the law of self-defense, does not properly instruct the jury in cases of self-defense involving multiple assailants, as in this case. Specifically, he claims that in order to correctly instruct the jury on the law of self-defense in his case, the trial court should have modified, sua sponte,Instruction No. 11 to expressly instruct the jury that, in determining whether he reasonably believed he was "in imminent danger of harm," justifying his using physical force aga
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