State of Missouri v. David Bennish, 479 S.W.3d 678

Defendant David Bennish was convicted by a St. Louis jury of three counts of statutory sodomy (2nd degree), one count of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, and one count of incest for sexual acts against his daughter D.R.; one count was dismissed at trial.
Allegations: two incidents of anal intercourse at residences near each other in St. Louis, and one incident in Defendant’s van where D.R. was forced to perform oral sex while stopped at a light.
The defense sought to impeach D.R.’s credibility by calling grandfather Frank and step-grandmother Betty Bennish to testify about D.R.’s reputation for truthfulness and past untruthful acts; the court sustained State objections to those portions of their testimony.
Defense did not make offers of proof when testimony was excluded. Betty was allowed to give limited reputation testimony but was barred from relating a specific instance of D.R. “telling stories.”
Defendant moved for judgments of acquittal at close of State’s case and at close of all evidence, arguing the State failed to prove Count III (van incident) occurred in Missouri; the court denied both motions.
The trial court sentenced Defendant to an aggregate 15 years. On appeal, the Missouri Court of Appeals (Eastern District, Division Two) affirmed.

Issue	State's Argument	Bennish's Argument	Held
1. Whether exclusion of Frank Bennish’s testimony on D.R.’s truthfulness was error	Court properly excluded because Frank lacked foundation showing familiarity with D.R.’s community reputation	Exclusion prevented impeachment of victim’s credibility; testimony was admissible	Affirms exclusion: Frank lacked requisite opportunity to observe and knowledge of community reputation; no plain error because no offer of proof
2. Whether exclusion of Betty Bennish’s testimony about a specific prior untruthful act was error	Specific acts are inadmissible; Betty’s personal knowledge/opinion irrelevant to reputation evidence	Betty’s specific example was highly probative to impeach D.R.	Affirms exclusion: trial court properly limited to reputation evidence; specific acts improperly offered and defendant failed to proffer details to preserve issue
3. Sufficiency of evidence that Count III occurred in Missouri (jurisdictional element)	Circumstantial evidence (location of other incidents, residency, routine trip) permits reasonable inference crime occurred in Missouri	State failed to prove van incident occurred in Missouri beyond reasonable doubt	Affirms denial of acquittal: evidence and reasonable inferences supported finding beyond a reasonable doubt that incident occurred in Missouri

State v. Smith, 314 S.W.3d 802 (Mo. App. E.D.) (victim places reputation for truthfulness at issue; limits on personal-opinion impeachment)
State v. Trimble, 638 S.W.2d 726 (Mo. banc) (defense may impeach witness reputation for veracity)
State v. Durham, 371 S.W.3d 30 (Mo. App. E.D.) (character witnesses may testify to general community reputation, not specific acts)
Cantrell v. Superior Loan Corp., 603 S.W.2d 627 (Mo. App. E.D.) (witness must have opportunity to observe and know community views to testify to reputation)
State v. Kleen, 491 S.W.2d 244 (Mo.) (jurisdiction requires some part of criminal transaction to occur within Missouri)
State v. Jones, 296 S.W.3d 506 (Mo. App. E.D.) (circumstantial evidence may establish each element of crime)
State v. Belton, 153 S.W.3d 307 (Mo.) (standard for reviewing sufficiency of evidence; view evidence in light most favorable to the verdict)