State v. Laws

MONTGOMERY, Presiding Judge.

A jury found Timothy R. Laws (Defendant) guilty of the class C felony of forgery, in violation of § 570.090.1(1), RSMo 1986. He was sentenced as a prior offender to five years’ imprisonment. This appeal followed.

Defendant claims the trial court plainly erred (1) in failing to exclude his in-court identification; (2) in failing to declare a mistrial, sua sponte, after the prosecutor argued in closing that no evidence contradicted the testimony of two state witnesses; and (3) by submitting Instruction No. 4, patterned after MAI-CR 3d 302.04, defining “reasonable…