Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green properly denied a Jefferson City man's request for post-conviction relief, a three-judge panel of the state appeals court in Kansas City ruled last week.
Stephen L. Cook had argued he twice was denied "effective assistance" from both his trial and appeals lawyers.
A Cole County jury convicted Cook in July 2009 of first-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm.
A grand jury indicted Cook in October 2008 for killing his stepdaughter's boyfriend, Cornelius Williams, 33, during a confrontation on the parking lot of the Dialysis Center Inc., 144 Scott Station Road.
Williams was shot in the neck while sitting in his car, and died two days later.
Cook had argued the shooting was an accident that happened while Cook was trying to return Williams' gun taken during a quarrel between the two men about a week before the shooting.
That quarrel apparently was over the way Williams and his girlfriend Judith Hussman, Cook's stepdaughter, were raising her three children as well as Cook's other stepdaughter.
On Aug. 24, 2009, then-Judge Richard Callahan sentenced Cook to life in prison without parole.
Cook filed his first appeal the next day, and on Jan. 25, 2011, the Kansas City appeals court division upheld Cook's conviction.
Two months later, Cook filed his second appeal, asking Green for post-conviction relief as outlined by the Supreme Court's rules. Green held an evidentiary hearing on Aug. 27, 2013, then denied Cook's motion on Dec. 17, 2014.
A month later, Cook asked the appeals court to overturn Green's decision, arguing his trial lawyer, from the public defender's office, failed to object to his stepdaughter's trial testimony as hearsay.
And, he argued, his lawyer for the first appeal should have complained that one of the jury's instructions was not a state-approved instruction, which hurt his appeal.
But the court disagreed.
Hussman had testified she didn't hear the beginning of the quarrel between Cook and Williams, but witnessed some of it as it quickly escalated.
"Neither Cook nor the State contends she was not present for the remainder of the argument," the judges noted, "and she was, therefore, capable of relaying those events according to her own personal observations."
Also, the court said, Cook didn't show her testimony prejudiced his case, so his lawyer wasn't wrong when he didn't object to the testimony.
The appeals judges agreed the one instruction wasn't part of the pre-approved jury instructions, but it was acceptable because it was similar to them.
And, they noted, jurors were told Cook's previous criminal history could be used only for deciding if he was a felon prohibited from possessing a weapon - and could not be used to determine Cook's guilt on the murder and armed criminal action charges.
The 14-page ruling is described as an "informal, unpublished memorandum" opinion provided only to the parties, and is not to be cited or used in unrelated cases in any Missouri court.
In a case like Cook's, the appeals judges issue an unsigned memorandum opinion to explain the decision to partices involved when it useful to lawyers handling other cases.