Suspended sentence granted in rural Joplin domestic assault case
Dec. 8—A 31-year-old rural Joplin man has pleaded to a felony domestic assault of his girlfriend in a plea deal dismissing a charge that he subsequently tried to get her to drop the original charge.
Matthew E. Spurgeon changed his plea to guilty Tuesday in Jasper County Circuit Court on a charge of second-degree domestic assault in a plea agreement allowing a suspended sentence.
Judge David Mouton accepted the plea and granted Spurgeon a five-year suspended sentence with five years of supervised probation.
Spurgeon assaulted Amanda White during a domestic disturbance the night of July 17, 2019, and extending into the following day before a deputy arrived at their residence on Faison Lane in response to a request for a well-being check.
The deputy noticed upon arrival that White had bruising near an eye, and she told him that Spurgeon had slapped her cheekbone beneath the eye the previous night, according to a probable-cause affidavit. She said he had taken her cellphone away from her the following day and locked her in a bedroom with him to keep her from leaving.
The defendant was accused of later persuading White to drop the charge prior to a preliminary hearing three years ago. But the prosecutor's office subpoenaed her for the hearing and filed a motion seeking to be allowed to present statements she had made to police as evidence at the hearing if she failed to show up. The motion — which sought to circumvent a defendant's right to face their accuser in court through a legal doctrine known as forfeiture of wrongdoing — became moot when White showed up to testify.
But the state's case was arguably weakened when Spurgeon's attorney asked her if he had struck her in the course of trying to avoid a glass she threw at him and if the blow actually may have been accidental, and she had replied that she did not know.
