STATE OF MISSOURI vs. JACOLE N. PRINCE

In October 2005, Prince’s then four-year-old daughter L.P. (“Victim”) was admitted to

Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. She was unresponsive from an unknown cause and was

unable to breath effectively on her own. Victim was placed in the intensive care unit and underwent

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surgery, after which she was temporarily placed on a respirator. Measurements of her weight and

length found her to be below the standard for her age. When she was first admitted, she weighed

only 11.9 kilograms (26.2 pounds); when she was discharged, her weight had increased, despite

being on a respirator and thus unable to eat for part of her stay.

Victim was readmitted to the hospital on January 31, 2006. She had lost significant weight

since her previous discharge. Despite being four years old, Victim’s weight was found to be that

of a two-year-old. She also showed signs of developmental delays, which included regressing from

being properly toilet trained. While in the hospital for only two days, Victim nonetheless managed

to gain an additional kilogram of body weight, which was unusual given that average weight gain

for a child of her age was only six to seven grams per day. Healthcare providers determined that

she was suffering from acute and chronic malnutrition, and they believed that this was the result

of neglect including the intentional withholding of food. They also noted that Prince had failed to

follow the medical plan outlined for Victim upon her previous discharge, including missing two

scheduled clinic appointments.

During Victim’s second hospital admission, Prince confessed to medical staff that she had

been intentionally withholding food from Victim as a form of punishment. Prince stated that she

believed that Victim would purposefully urinate or defecate on herself because Prince had stopped

giving her candy as a reward when she properly used the toilet. In response to Prince’s admissions

and their own observations, healthcare providers made a hotline call to report the suspected abuse

and neglect of Victim. The State, acting through its Children’s Division, removed Victim and her

sister from Prince’s custody and placed them in the care of Prince’s boyfriend, who was the

biological father of one of Prince’s other children.

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Victim showed significant signs of improvement after being removed from Prince’s

custody. She made a follow-up visit to the clinic on February 9, 2006, where it was noted that she

had continued to gain weight since her discharge. They also noted that her toilet training behaviors

had stabilized and that she no longer urinated or defecated in her underwear. Victim also began

attending kindergarten classes in the Kansas City Public School District at this time. Victim’s

condition continued to improve through May of the same year, at which point she was released

from treatment for growth problems related to malnourishment. At the time, Victim weighed 14.9

kilograms (32.8 pounds).

Victim was returned to the custody of Prince in April of 2007. Shortly after being returned

to Prince, Victim stopped attending school and was instead forced to spend most of each day

locked in an upstairs bedroom closet in Prince’s apartment. She regularly went to the bathroom in

the closet and slept in the closet at night. She would sometimes be fed in the closet and was at

other times allowed to join the family for meals, though in such instances she ate her meal behind

the couch while the rest of the family sat on the couch and watched television. Victim was usually

allowed to eat once per day, but some days she went without any food. On some occasions, Prince

would take Victim’s food away as a form of punishment. When family members who knew of

Victim’s existence visited Prince’s apartment, Prince would clean Victim and allow her out of the

closet to play. If Prince entertained visitors who did not know about Victim, however, she would

lock Victim in the closet and tell her to be quiet. Victim testified that being kept in the closet was

used as punishment for urinating or defecating on herself. While in the closet, Victim was supposed

to indicate when she needed to use the restroom by banging on the door. When she needed to

relieve herself but no one opened the closet door, because either no one was able to hear her or

Prince chose to ignore her, Victim would be forced to urinate or defecate on herself.

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On June 22, 2012, the Children’s Division received a hotline call reporting that Victim was

being kept in a locked closet in Prince’s apartment and was not being properly fed. The Children’s

Division designated the call as an emergency and assigned an investigator to examine its

authenticity. The investigator reviewed the Children’s Division’s records regarding Prince and

Victim and attempted, but failed, to make contact with the hotline caller. The investigator then

contacted law enforcement and arranged to have them meet her at Prince’s apartment. Once the

investigator arrived at Prince’s apartment, she informed the police of the information in the

Children’s Division’s records and then knocked on the door but did not get a response. The police

and the investigator prepared to leave, with the intention of returning later, but were stopped by

Prince’s neighbors. The neighbors informed the police that Prince had left a short time earlier with

her “two children,” by which the police understood the neighbors to mean Prince’s other two

daughters. When questioned regarding Prince’s eldest daughter, Victim, the neighbors denied

knowledge of a third child but speculated that, if there was a third child, she resided with a family

member or friend. This corroborated information from the hotline call that Prince regularly told

other family members or friends that Victim lived with an aunt. The police contacted the head of

the Housing Authority’s Public Safety Department who confirmed that three children were

supposed to be residing in the apartment according to their records. Based on the foregoing

information, the police made the decision to enter the apartment.

Once inside the apartment, officers found their way to a bedroom on the second floor,

which was described as emanating a strong odor of urine. The officers observed that the closet

door had been tied shut and a large playpen had been pushed in front of it. One of the officers

knocked on the closet door and asked if anyone was inside, to which Victim responded “I am.”

The officers acted quickly to open the closet and remove Victim, who was transported to

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Children’s Mercy Hospital. Victim weighed approximately 32 pounds, nearly the same weight as

six years earlier. She was suffering from bradycardia (low heart rate), lacked subcutaneous fat, had

very poor muscle tone, and showed signs of bruising or swelling on her lower back, among other

medical issues.

Meanwhile, Prince, having been informed by a neighbor that the police were interested in

speaking with her, fled to the residence of her boyfriend’s sister. Police eventually tracked her

down, and she was taken into custody. When interviewed by police, Prince initially denied keeping

Victim in the closet before admitting that she would occasionally lock Victim in the closet when

she left the apartment. Prince told police that she did not want others realizing how poorly Victim

was being cared for and feared that her other daughters would be taken away. Several times during

the interview, Prince admitted that she had treated Victim “terribly wrong.”

Prince was charged with one count of assault in the first degree (Count I), one count of

abuse of a child (Count II), and one count of endangering the welfare of a child (Count III). On

January 7, 2014, Prince appeared before the plea court to enter Alford pleas1 to counts I and II and

a conventional guilty plea as to count III. In exchange for these pleas, the State agreed to cap

Prince’s sentence at twenty years. When the plea court asked Prince if she wished to plead guilty,

she initially responded “no.” After a fifteen-minute recess, during which she met with her counsel,

Prince changed her position and agreed to plead guilty in accordance with the agreement. After

conducting a plea hearing and making the necessary findings, the plea court accepted Prince’s

pleas to all three counts and scheduled sentencing for April 25, 2014. Ten days after entering her

pleas, Prince sent a postcard to the plea court claiming her pleas had been the product of coercion

1 An Alford plea allows a defendant to plead guilty to a charged offense and accept criminal penalty even if he or she is unwilling or unable to admit to committing the acts constituting the offense. Brooks v. State, 242 S.W.3d 705, 709 n. 2 (Mo. banc 2008) (citing North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970)).

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by her counsel. In addition, Prince sent a forty-two page letter to the Kansas City Star in which she

repeated the claims made in the postcard sent the plea court. On February 10, 2014, the plea court

entered an order setting aside the pleas, placed the case back on the trial docket, and transferred

the case to a different division.

With the pleas set aside, the case went forward on the original charges before a new trial

judge. Prior to trial, Prince filed a motion to suppress all evidence related to the discovery of

Victim, all medical evidence that followed the discovery of Victim, and all other evidence seized

from her apartment, arguing the evidence was the product of an unlawful entry into her apartment.

The trial court denied Prince’s motion. The matter proceeded to trial before a jury beginning on

November 20, 2015. During the trial, Prince called two witnesses, one to challenge certain aspects

of Victim’s injuries and one to support a diminished capacity defense. Prince did not object to the

introduction of the evidence seized from her apartment. Prince was found guilty of all three counts,

and the jury recommended sentences of twenty years as to count I, and seven years as to both

counts II and III. The trial court sentenced Prince consistent with the jury’s recommendations,

running the sentences consecutively for a total of thirty-four years. This appeal follows.

Points Raised on Appeal

Prince raises three points on appeal. First, Prince argues that the plea court plainly erred in

vacating her Alford plea2 and that the subsequent trial thus violated her rights to due process and

against double jeopardy. Second, Prince argues that the trial court erred in overruling her motion

to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless entry into her apartment. Finally,

2 Prince’s brief states that the plea court erred when it vacated her Alford plea. The record reflects that Prince entered two Alford pleas, one as to the assault charge and one for the child abuse charge, and one conventional plea regarding the child endangerment charge. Further, all three pleas were set aside by the plea court in its order. As such, it is difficult for this court to tell the extent to which Prince alleges error. This ambiguity is inconsequential, however, as we find the plea court committed no error in vacating any of the pleas. For the purpose of this appeal, we will assume Prince’s point refers to the plea court’s action vacating all of her pleas.



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Prince argues that the trial court erred in overruling her motion for mistrial following outbursts she

made during the sentencing phase of the trial. We review these points in the order they are

presented.

Alleged Error in Setting Aside the Pleas

In her first point, Prince alleges that the plea court erred in setting aside the pleas she had

previously entered on January 7, 2014. Prince acknowledges that this claim of error was not raised

at the time it occurred. As such, the claim is unpreserved and may be reviewed at our discretion

only for plain error. State v. Taylor, 466 S.W.3d 521, 533 (Mo. banc 2015); State v. Creamer, 161

S.W.3d 420, 424 (Mo. App. W.D. 2005). “Plain error is found when the alleged error facially

establish[es] substantial grounds for believing a manifest injustice or miscarriage of justice

occurred.” Taylor, 466 S.W.3d at 533 (quoting State v. Driskill, 459 S.W.3d 412, 426 (Mo. banc

2015)) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Such errors must be ‘evident, obvious, and clear.’” Id.

(quoting State v. Hunt, 451 S.W.3d 251, 260 (Mo. banc 2014)).

Rule 24.02(c) requires that a “court shall not accept a plea of guilty without first, by

addressing the defendant personally in open court, determining that the plea is voluntary and not

the result of force or threats or of promises apart from a plea agreement.”3 Once the plea court has

entered its unqualified acceptance of the plea, jeopardy is considered to have attached to the

proceedings. Creamer, 161 S.W.3d at 425-26. Consequently, the plea court may not subsequently

set aside the plea on its own motion without violating the constitutional prohibition against double

jeopardy unless it determines that some material aspect of the plea proceeding rendered the plea

unknowing or involuntary. Id. at 426.

3 All references are to Missouri Supreme Court Rules (2017).

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When the plea court asked Prince during the plea hearing if it was her intention to plead

guilty, she initially responded “no.” It was only after spending approximately fifteen minutes alone

with her counsel that Prince decided to accept the plea agreement and enter her pleas. After

entering her pleas, Prince sent a postcard to the plea court, as well as a letter to the Kansas City

Star, declaring that her pleas had been the result of coercion by her counsel and were not

voluntarily made. The plea court relied on these assertions when it entered an order setting aside

the pleas. In its order, the plea court specifically stated:

The Court, on its own motion, takes up the above-styled cause on this 10th day of February, 2014. Pursuant to a plea agreement negotiated between the parties, this Court accepted the guilty pleas of defendant Prince on January 7, 2014. Defendant Prince entered Alford pleas to Counts I and II and a conventional guilty plea to Count III. Sentencing was deferred to April 25, 2014, pending the completion of a Sentencing Assessment Report.



On January 17, 2014, the Court received a postcard that was apparently sent from defendant Prince to the undersigned by U.S. mail. Among other claims, defendant Prince wrote that she “didn’t except (sic) the plea because I did not want to take the plea.” The note also states that “[Prince’s appointed public defender] had threaten me to except (sic) that plea.” A lengthy story on the front page of the February 9, 2014[,] Kansas City Star references a recent 42 page letter from defendant Prince to the Kansas City Star reporter. The letter essentially repeats the same statements concerning the alleged coerced and involuntary guilty pleas entered in this case on January 7, 2014.



This Court has determined that the postcard received by the Court from defendant Prince on January 17, 2014, should be treated as a request to withdraw the January 7, 2014[,] guilty pleas pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 29.07(d). The Court finds and concludes that defendant Prince misled the Court when answering questions about the voluntariness of her guilty pleas on January 7, 2014[,] and that, in fact, she did not knowingly intend to enter pleas of guilty on such date.



Prince did not object to the plea court’s action setting aside her pleas at any time prior to, or during,

the ensuing trial. It was only after standing trial and being found guilty that she complained that

the plea court did not have the authority to set aside her pleas because the plea court did so on its

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own motion in violation of her constitutionally protected right against double jeopardy.4 Such a

contention is without merit.

Prince’s argument with regard to this point is based solely on the case of State v. Creamer,

a case that is easily distinguishable from the one before us. In Creamer, the defendant entered into

a plea agreement that, in relevant part, reduced the degree of one of his charges and amended the

other charge to an attempt offense. Creamer, 161 S.W.3d at 423. Pursuant to that agreement, the

defendant entered two pleas, one as an Alford Plea and the other as a conventional plea. Id. The

trial court accepted the defendant’s pleas initially but later set them aside when it learned that

during the pre-sentence investigation the defendant repeatedly told the probation officer that he

was not guilty.5 Id. This court found that the trial court had committed plain error in doing so. Id.

at 428.

The Creamer court acknowledged “that Rule 24.02(c) inferentially permits a trial court to

[withdraw acceptance of a previously entered guilty plea] when it determines that a defendant's

guilty plea was unknowing or involuntary.” Id. at 425-26 (citing State v. Douglas, 622 S.W.2d 28,

30 (Mo. App. W.D. 1981)). However, the court found that not to be the situation in the case before

it. The Creamer court noted that the defendant had not argued that his pleas were not knowingly

or voluntarily made, but rather, had simply maintained his innocence after entering the Alford plea.

Id. at 426. The court pointed out that the very “essence of the Alford plea is that the defendant does

4 Prince seeks to characterize the plea court’s action as being entirely sua sponte and insinuates that she opposed the plea court’s action vacating her pleas. This characterization both ignores Prince’s own complicity through her contacting the plea court as well as her failure to raise an objection to the plea court’s action with regard to her pleas until the jury had found her guilty and contradicts the plea court’s order construing the postcard it received from Prince to be a request to withdraw her pleas pursuant to Rule 29.07(d). This makes the present case markedly different from the Creamer case on which Prince relies, which concerned a defendant who did not initiate the process that resulted in the vacating of his guilty pleas. State v. Creamer, 161 S.W.3d 420, 423 (Mo. App. W.D. 2005).



5 The State ultimately dropped the charge for which the defendant had entered the conventional guilty plea and the case proceeded to trial only on the charge for which the defendant had previously entered the Alford plea. As a result, only the charge related to the Alford plea was before the court on appeal.

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not admit to having committed the offense.” Id. Thus, the court concluded that “a subsequent

statement by that defendant that he did not commit that offense is typically immaterial to the

continued validity of an Alford plea” and that, as a result, “the trial court committed error in

ordering Creamer's guilty plea withdrawn on its own motion” simply because he had maintained

his innocence. Id.at 426-27.

In contrast to the defendant in Creamer, Prince did not merely assert her innocence after

entering an Alford plea. Instead, she claimed her pleas had not been made voluntarily and were the

product of coercion by her counsel. As a result, the present case is more analogous to the case of

State v. Douglas, where this court held that a plea court did not abuse its discretion in setting aside

a previously accepted guilty plea after the defendant “accused his attorney of lying to him and

indicated that questionable advice from the attorney had motivated him, at least in part, to plead

guilty.” State v. Douglas, 622 S.W.2d 28, 29–30 (Mo. App. W.D. 1981). The Douglas court found

that “a defendant acquires no protected interest in a guilty plea accepted pending further

proceedings in the case if subsequent developments indicate that either the court or the defendant

erred in some material aspect of the initial plea tender and acceptance.” Id. at 30. The court went

on to hold that “[w]hile withdrawal of a guilty plea at the initiative of the court is not expressly

provided in a counterface to Rule 29.07(d), the obligation of the court to receive only pleas made

knowingly and voluntarily infers this authority without more.” Id.

In the present case, the plea court received a postcard from the defendant that it determined

should be treated as a request to withdraw the previously entered pleas based on assertions that

those pleas were the result of threats and coercion by Prince’s defense counsel. Prince’s allegations

went directly to a “material aspect of the initial plea[s]” – the foundational requirement that a plea

be entered voluntarily. The plea court considered the request and ruled in favor of Prince, granting

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her the relief she had requested. At no time prior to the jury returning its verdicts did Prince

complain that the plea court had misinterpreted her communication or that it was not her desire

that the pleas be vacated. Upon the record thus presented, there exists no basis to conclude that the

trial court plainly erred in vacating Prince’s pleas.6 Prince’s first point is therefore denied.

Exigent Circumstances

Prior to the commencement of trial, Prince filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized

as a result of the warrantless entry into her apartment. The trial court denied Prince’s motion.

Prince concedes that she failed to object to the introduction of the evidence when offered at trial

and that the challenge now brought is thus unpreserved and may only be reviewed for plain error.

State v. Loyd, 326 S.W.3d 908, 911 (Mo. App. W.D. 2010).

Generally speaking, “warrantless searches and seizures inside a home are presumptively

unreasonable and unconstitutional.” State v. Oliver, 293 S.W.3d 437, 442 (Mo. banc 2009). This

presumption may be overcome, however, “by demonstrating that the search or seizure ‘falls within

one of a carefully defined set of exceptions, many of which are based on the presence of exigent

circumstances.’” State v. Cromer, 186 S.W.3d 333, 343–44 (Mo. App. W.D. 2005) (quoting State

v. Simmons, 158 S.W.3d 901, 906 (Mo. App. S.D. 2005)). These “exceptions include pursuing a

fleeing felon, preventing the imminent destruction of evidence, preventing a suspect's escape, or

mitigating the risk of danger to law enforcement or other persons inside or outside of the dwelling.”

Id.

6 We stress the fact that Prince and Prince alone was responsible for introducing the question of the voluntariness of her pleas into the case. It has long been held that a defendant should not be allowed to profit from the existence of errors they create. State v. Bolden, 371 S.W.3d 802, 806 (Mo. banc 2012) (“It is axiomatic that a defendant may not take advantage of self-invited error or error of [her] own making.”) (quoting State v. Mayes, 63 S.W.3d 615, 632 n. 6 (Mo. banc 2001)). Further, as the court in State v. Douglas pointed out, if the plea court had not taken up the issue of the voluntariness of Prince’s pleas, then she may have later attempted to challenge her convictions on those grounds after sentencing. State v. Douglas, 622 S.W.2d 28, 30 (Mo. App. W.D. 1981). Prince went to extraordinary lengths to convince both the plea court and the public as a whole that her pleas were not made voluntarily. She cannot now claim she has suffered a miscarriage of justice on the grounds that the court believed her.

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An instructive example of the exigent circumstances exception is found in the case of State

v. Burnett. In Burnett, officers were searching for a missing child and, following a lead, went to

the home of the child’s biological parents whose rights had previously been terminated based on a

substantiated report of child sexual abuse and prior history with law enforcement. State v. Burnett,

230 S.W.3d 15, 17 (Mo. App. W.D. 2007). Officers knocked on the door several times without

receiving an answer but observed a shadow through a window of what appeared to be someone

holding a child and heard noises coming from inside. Id. Eventually the officers’ repeated

knocking brought a small child to the door, though not the one they were looking for, who told the

officers that they had no right to be there and had to leave. Id. at 18. In response, the officers made

the decision to enter the premises in search of the missing child. Id.

On appeal, this court determined that there were sufficient exigent circumstances to justify

the officers’ warrantless entry. Id at 21. The Burnett court noted that “[m]any cases which have

found a justification for a warrantless entry or search have been based on evidence of distressing

circumstances involving an immediate threat of harm.” Id. at 19. The court found that this was

particularly true “[w]hen a young child is at risk from an individual with a history of violent or

abusive behavior.” Id. The court concluded that the evidence which strongly suggested that the

child in question was being held in the house coupled with the biological parent’s prior criminal

history and reported abuse established a reasonable basis for police to enter the residence and

search for the missing child. Id. at 19-21. As the court stated, “[i]t is an important function of the

state and law enforcement to secure the well[-]being of helpless children who are being hidden or

closeted by those who lack authority to keep the child from properly constituted officers of the

state . . . .” Id. at 21.

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We agree with the conclusion of the Burnett court and note the factual similarities between

that case and the situation now before us. In the present case, the police were responding to a

hotline call that alleged that Victim was being kept locked out of sight in Prince’s residence and

was not receiving proper nourishment. The call was corroborated by the questioning of Prince’s

neighbors and the information provided to the responding officers by housing authority personnel.

Further, police were aware that Prince had a history of abusing this particular child in the same

manner alleged in the hotline call. Thus, there was substantial evidence for the officers to

reasonably believe that Victim was currently in the apartment suffering from abusive neglect.7

Consequently, the trial court did not commit plain error in either finding exigent circumstances

existed sufficient to deny Prince’s motion to suppress or in allowing the evidence to be presented

at trial. Prince’s second point is denied.

Motion for Mistrial

Prince’s third and final point alleges that the trial court erred in overruling her motion for

a mistrial following an outburst by Prince during the sentencing phase of the trial. The incident

occurred after Victim’s foster mother read from a prepared statement, which included the

following:

When I asked her about basic hygiene cleaning, she stated she was not allowed to use the restroom, bathe[,] or brush her teeth. She would sometimes get cold showers or occasionally allowed out of the closet to use the restroom when she knocked or

7 Prince argues that there was no evidence to suggest that Victim was in need of immediate aid, i.e., that police lacked the time to secure and execute a warrant, and thus no exigency existed to justify a warrantless entry. Her argument is based primarily on the fact that the hotline caller appears to have waited two weeks after having witnessed Victim’s living conditions to make the call. This argument is without merit, particularly in a case in which the issue is being reviewed for plain error. The existence of exigent circumstances based on the need to render aid or prevent imminent harm does not turn on the likelihood that a victim will perish without police intervention. The court in Burnett noted that “[t]o have postponed the entry to allow time to obtain a warrant would have delayed recovery of the infant and created a risk that the infant could be harmed in the meantime.” State v. Burnett, 230 S.W.3d 15, 19 (Mo. App. W.D. 2007). Here, there is no question that, at the time police entered the apartment, Victim was at risk of suffering ongoing harm. As the trial court correctly pointed out, the two-week delay between the hotline caller observing Victim and making the hotline call did not mitigate the exigency but rather enhanced it.

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called out to you. Most of the time it was too late when you came to get her. This is when most of the slapping, punching, and whipping would take place.



Following this statement, Prince’s counsel objected to the fact that the witness had directed some

of her comments at Prince. As counsel stood at the bench discussing the objection with the trial

court, Prince became unruly and loudly asserted that “she was a good mother” and that “the witness

did not know her.” Eventually, after being reprimanded by the court, Prince chose to absent herself

from the courtroom. In response to this incident, the court admonished the State for failing to

properly review the witness’s prepared statement and required the remainder of the testimony be

given in question and answer format. The court also instructed the jury that Prince was exercising

her right not to be present and that it was to disregard the statements made by the witness that were

directed at Prince. However, the court overruled Prince’s motion for a mistrial, determining its

instructions to the jury were a sufficient remedial measure to address the conduct.

We review the refusal of a trial court to grant a mistrial for an abuse of discretion. State v.

Roberson, 501 S.W.3d 465, 470 (Mo. App. W.D. 2016). This is because “the trial court, unlike a

reviewing court, ‘has observed the complained of incident and is in a better position ... to determine

what prejudicial effect, if any, the alleged error had on the jury.’” Id. (quoting State v. McClendon,

477 S.W.3d 206, 215 (Mo. App. W.D. 2015)). “A trial court abuses its discretion to grant a mistrial

only if ‘its ruling is clearly against the logic of the circumstances before it and when the ruling is

so arbitrary and unreasonable as to shock the appellate court's sense of justice and indicate a lack

of careful consideration.’” State v. Blurton, 484 S.W.3d 758, 779 (Mo. banc 2016) (quoting State

v. Ward, 242 S.W.3d 698, 704 (Mo. banc 2008)). A “mistrial is a ‘drastic remedy’ and should only

be employed in the most extraordinary circumstances, when prejudice to the defendant cannot be

removed in any other way.” State v. Bazell, 497 S.W.3d 263, 268 (Mo. banc 2016).

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Prince’s argument that the trial court abused its discretion in denying her request for a

mistrial fails for several reasons. First, it is significant that the circumstances which Prince

contends required a mistrial resulted from her own conduct. Prince attempts to argue that her

outbursts were the result of the witness’s deliberate attempt to provoke her but offers no evidence

to support this claim. Rather, the trial court noted that Prince was becoming visibly agitated long

before the witness made the statements at issue. In denying a mistrial, the circuit court was entitled

to consider that Prince’s outburst was not the unavoidable or intended result of actions by the State

or the State’s witness.

The claim must also fail because the trial court properly remedied the situation when it

instructed the jury regarding the witness’s statements and Prince’s own absence from the

courtroom. In most circumstances where the jury has been improperly presented with evidence,

“the circuit court cures any error by withdrawing the improper evidence and instructing the jury to

disregard it, rather than granting a mistrial.” State v. Evans, 490 S.W.3d 377, 383 (Mo. App. W.D.

2016). Further, “[t]he jury is presumed to follow the court's instruction.” Id. Prince has presented

no evidence to rebut the presumption that whatever prejudice may have been created by the

witness’s remarks and Prince’s subsequent outbursts were adequately addressed through the trial

court’s curative instructions.