State v. Buckles

Gurney Edward Buckles was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to forty years in prison for the killing of Donald Stewart. An expanded panel of the Court of Appeals, Western District, affirmed the judgment; the case was certified to this Court by a dissenting judge in belief that the majority’s decision on one of several points on appeal was in conflict with State v. Oldham, 618 S.W.2d 647 (Mo. banc 1981). The case is determined as an original appeal, Mo.Const. art. V, § 10; the judgment will be affirmed in an opinion which incorporates much of the majority opinion of Swofford,…