Case Title: Webb v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: CR96-71-1, CR96-711

State: arkansas

Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Date: 1996-09-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
Michael Ryan WEBB v. STATE of Arkansas

CR 96-941                                          ___ S.W.2d ___

                    Supreme Court of Arkansas
               Opinion delivered December 16, 1996


1.   Criminal procedure -- motion for directed verdict -- when
     timely raised. -- A motion for directed verdict must be
     renewed at the end of the close of the case, and an attempt to
     renew such motion after the jury has been charged is not
     timely.

2.   Jury -- instructions -- no error in refusing to give
     instruction not warranted by evidence. -- There is no error in
     the refusal to give an instruction where there is no evidence
     to support the giving of that instruction. 

3.   Jury -- instructions -- model criminal instructions to be used
     so long as they accurately state law. -- When a trial court
     determines that the jury be instructed on an issue, the model
     criminal instructions shall be used unless the trial court
     concludes they do not accurately state the law.

4.   Jury -- appellant not entitled to mere presence instruction --
     accomplice liability clearly applicable. -- Where appellant
     failed to point to any evidence that showed he was merely
     present at the crime scene when two boys were shot, and the
     evidence presented showed that appellant had been present at
     the time of the shootings, but in being present, he shot
     someone and afterwards was overheard talking about it,
     appellant would not have been entitled to a "mere presence"
     instruction even if it had been in AMCI2d; AMCI2d 401 on
     accomplice liability was clearly applicable to the facts and
     required no further explanation of the law.


     Appeal from Pulaski Circuit Court; Marion Humphrey, Judge;
affirmed.
     Dover & Dixon, by:  James R. Rhodes, III, and Jack T.
Lassiter, for appellant.
     Winston Bryant, Att'y Gen., by:  David R. Raupp, Asst. Att'y
Gen., for appellee.

     Tom Glaze, Justice.
     Appellant Michael Webb brings this appeal from his convictions
for the first-degree murder of Jason Hatcher and first-degree
battery of Timothy McGarity, and his respective sentences for each
crime of forty and six years' imprisonment.  This is the third
appeal this court has had involving Hatcher's death and McGarity's
battery.  See Carter v. State, 324 Ark. 249, 921 S.W.2d 583 (1996);
Jones v. State, 321 Ark. 649, 907 S.W.2d 672 (1995).  Webb's points
for reversal are that the trial court erred in denying his
directed-verdict motions and in refusing his proffered "mere
presence" instruction. 
     We first dispose of Webb's directed verdict motion issue
because it was not properly preserved below.  At the close of the
State's case, Webb moved for a directed verdict based on
insufficiency of the evidence, which the trial court denied.  After
the jury was instructed but before it began deliberations, Webb
renewed his motion for directed verdict, stating the evidence was
insufficient to prove the State's charges and failed to show he was
an accomplice.  As we held in Claiborne v. State, 319 Ark. 602,