Hodges v. State
| Decision Date | 12 January 1914 |
| Citation | 163 S.W. 506 |
| Parties | HODGES v. STATE. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Certiorari to Circuit Court, Clark County; Jacob M. Carter, Judge.
Arthur Hodges was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings certiorari. Reversed.
Appellant was tried and convicted upon an indictment charging him with the crime of murder in the first degree. He filed a motion for a new trial in which, among other grounds, it was alleged that appellant was insane at the time of his trial and that that fact was unknown to his counsel until after the trial. The motion for a new trial was overruled, and this appeal was taken from the judgment of the court pronounced upon the jury's verdict. Thereupon appellant by his next friend filed in the court below a petition for a writ of error coram nobis, with numerous exhibits thereto, in which it was alleged that appellant was insane at the time of his trial, and that this fact was not known to his attorneys until after the conclusion of the trial. The prayer of this petition was denied, and a writ of certiorari was sued out, and upon its return we have that record before us. These proceedings have been consolidated and briefed together, and the questions there raised will be disposed of in this opinion.
It is contended in the main case that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict and that the proof fails to show any premeditation. No objection is urged to the instructions. It appears that appellant was arrested by Morgan Garner, a constable of Clark county, assisted by one J. E. Chancellor, upon a charge of having stolen a pistol and some trinkets of small value. At the time of the arrest, appellant inquired of Garner whether he had a warrant commanding his arrest, and, upon receiving a negative reply, appellant declined to submit to arrest, whereupon Garner thrust a pistol in his face and directed him to throw up his hands and to submit to a search of his person. It appears that appellant was armed with a pistol at the time he was searched, but the officer failed to find the weapon, and appellant retained it in his possession, and shortly thereafter shot Garner with it twice, killing him, and these proceedings grow out of that homicide. Appellant testified at the trial that, when he was arrested, Garner insulted, abused, and beat him, to all of which he submitted, although he became angry and quarreled with Garner, but did not attempt to resent the insult or to resist the assault upon him further than to warn Garner against a repetition of his conduct. He testified that after submitting to the arrest, and while in Garner's custody, en route to the town where he was being carried, angry words passed between them, and that Garner undertook to shoot at him, whereupon he drew his own pistol and fired it in the air to frighten Garner and then shot over him for the same purpose and without any intention of killing him. Chancellor testified that after the arrest he and appellant and deceased were in a buggy, when they came to a rough place in the road, and he asked deceased and appellant to get out of the buggy and walk across a little ravine, while he led the mule by the road; that he heard appellant tell deceased to throw up his hands, and saw appellant fire two shots, when deceased drew his own revolver, which was in bad order, but which deceased succeeded in firing one time. The general purport of Chancellor's evidence was that appellant killed deceased in making his escape, and he did make his escape and was not rearrested for several days thereafter. These were the issues at the trial, and the evidence of Chancellor, which was evidently accepted by the jury as the truth, is sufficient to sustain the verdict of the jury.
In response to questions as to his residence and occupation, appellant testified he had spent two months in an insane asylum in Oklahoma, and on his cross-examination the following questions were asked and answers given: No proof was offered in support of the defense of insanity, and no instruction submitted that question to the jury, and it was not an issue in the case. The motion for a new trial set up newly discovered evidence which could not have been known or have been produced at the trial, to the effect that appellant was insane; but no attempt was made to establish that fact further than to recite it as a fact in the motion for a new trial. But attached to the petition for writ of error coram nobis were a number of exhibits supporting appellant's plea of insanity as follows: (1) A certified transcript of a...
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