Case Title: Thomas v. State

Citation: 583 S.W.2d 32

Docket Number: CR78-166

State: arkansas

Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Date: 1979-06-25T00:00:00Z

Document:
583 S.W.2d 32 (1979) Joseph Calvin THOMAS, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. No. CR78-166. Supreme Court of Arkansas, Division 2. June 25, 1979. *33 Jack T. Lassiter, Little Rock, for appellant. Bill Clinton, Atty. Gen., by Catherine Anderson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee. FOGLEMAN, Justice. Appellant Joseph Calvin Thomas was charged with the first degree murder of Jacob Martin, Jr., by shooting him on July 31, 1977. Thomas was found guilty of second degree murder. On appeal, he contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury verdict finding him guilty. We find sufficient evidence and affirm. Martin died as a result of a wound inflicted by the firing of a .38 caliber pistol by appellant. The issue of second degree murder was submitted to the jury as a lesser included offense by an instruction setting out Ark.Stat.Ann. § 41-1503(1)(b) (Repl. 1977), which defines that offense as follows: The case was properly submitted on the issue of justification. See Ark.Stat. Ann. § 41-110(3) (Repl.1977). Justification is a defense which becomes an issue when any evidence tending to support its existence is introduced by either the defendant or the state. Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 41-502, 41-110(3) (Repl.1977). Those portions of the statute applicable here [41-507 (Repl.1977)] provide: The court gave an instruction to the jury in the words of the statute. It is the position of appellant that the evidence presented by the state substantiated a defense of justification in that it showed that: The state had the burden of negating this defense. Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 41-115(5)(c), -110(1)(a), -110(3) (Repl.1977). Thus, argues appellant, the state failed to present sufficient evidence that he knowingly caused the death of Martin under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life. As we view the evidence, the answer to the question posed by appellant turns upon the question of justification, for, unless appellant was justified in the shooting of Martin, the evidence is ample to sustain *34 a conviction of second degree murder.[1] In evaluating the evidence, appellant views it, for the most part, in the light most favorable to him. We must view it, however, in the light most favorable to the state. Stout v. State, 263 Ark. 355, 565 S.W.2d 23. We will state it in that light. The shooting was witnessed by at least three persons other than the deceased and the defendant. It took place on the porch of a dwelling house at 1860 Summit in Little Rock, where both Martin and Thomas lived. Phillip Bryant, an 11-year-old boy, who lived next door, was one of them. His father and Ronald Lee Dixon were the others. After witnessing the shooting, Dixon called the police. Dixon, Bryant, Sr., and a man named Walter Jones were playing cards in Dixon's house, directly across the street from "the house at 1860 Summit Street. Thomas had been present there and had planned to play with the others, but Bryant said that he went back across the street several times. The shooting took place shortly after the last of these trips. The Bryant youth was upstairs in his room, looking out the window, when he saw Jacob Martin come through the screen door which opened onto the porch at 1860 Summit. He testified that Joe Thomas immediately followed Martin out. He said that Martin was holding a plate in one hand and that Thomas fired one shot which missed Martin, and that Martin, then holding the plate with both hands, threw it at Thomas, who then fired the second shot which struck Martin. The senior Bryant said that he and the others looked across the street and saw Martin come out of the house holding a plate of food on which there were eating utensils and that Thomas followed closely, carrying a gun at his side. He said that Martin was holding the plate with both hands and that the two appeared to be arguing, but that Martin had his back to Thomas and was standing near the steps when Thomas fired the pistol without raising it. Then, he said, Martin turned and, using both hands, threw the plate of food at Thomas, who shielded himself against the plate, took a step backward and shot Martin, who then fell to the porch. He said that Martin was unable to get up, although he tried several times. Dixon said that he looked across the street when he heard the first shot, which apparently went through the porch floor. He said that he saw Martin throw a plate of food, on which there were utensils, at Thomas. He said that the next instant he saw the second shot. It seemed to him that the two were arguing. He, too, stated that Martin held the plate with both hands when he threw it and that Martin and Thomas were from four to six feet apart. Both Bryant and Dixon observed through a picture window in the Dixon house. Dixon said that about five seconds elapsed between the time he looked up and the time the plate was thrown. Estimates of the three witnesses of the time interval between the throwing of the plate and the fatal shot ranged from a split second to five seconds. The Bryant youth and Dixon said that Martin had nothing in his hands after he threw the plate. Bryant, Sr., did not think that anything then remained in Martin's hands. Dixon knew that Martin had a knife and fork on the plate, but he said he couldn't see what Martin had in his left hand. After Martin fell, the elder Bryant saw Thomas walk across the porch toward Martin, holding the pistol over Martin's face, and then walk around Martin, still pointing the pistol at him. Bryant said that when Martin did not get up, Thomas, who was not wearing a shirt, went back into the house, but came out between 30 seconds and one minute later with a shirt, which he put on as he crossed the street on his way to the Dixon house. He knocked on Dixon's door, but Dixon told him to leave and, at Bryant's suggestion, called the police. Dixon said that Thomas then jumped off the porch and left. *35 At about 3:00 p. m., Lawrence Evans heard of the shooting. Later he went to his mother's house at 721 West 17th Street and saw Thomas there. He said that Thomas was nervous and upset and wanting to know if Martin was dead. According to Evans, he and others tried to calm Thomas and persuade him to turn himself over to the police. He said that Thomas kept saying, "He shouldn't have thrown the plate at me," and then said, the "guy had a knife." There seems to have been no witness to events preceding Martin's coming out the front door. Thomas gave the only accounts of these events, but they are not consistent. Thomas made a statement to officers Chapman and Garner at about 6:20 p. m. He gave this version of the events leading up to the front porch episode: Thomas testified. His testimony varied from the statement in important particulars. He stated that he did not shoot Martin intentionally. In his testimony, he recited the following version: Thomas was corroborated only by the facts that a knife was found on the porch, six to eight inches from Martin's left hand, after Thomas had left the scene, and that there was a broken plate near the doorway. Thomas did have a small cut on his lips when he reached the police station. In his brief, Thomas tacitly concedes that the evidence might justify the finding that the knife left Martin's hand when he threw the plate. Thomas said that he had tried unsuccessfully to find the two people who were inside the house when he reentered after the shooting. Yet, he did not give their names or other means of identifying them. He did give the names of two people he said he had seen across the street and had asked to call an ambulance, but he did not present them as witnesses. It is also true that Dixon, who gave some of the testimony most damaging to Thomas, had a criminal record and there were discrepancies in his testimony as compared with that he gave at a preliminary hearing. Still, the resolution of conflicts, inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence was for the jury. Scott v. State, 254 Ark. 271, 492 S.W.2d 902; Houpt v. State, 249 Ark. 485, 459 S.W.2d 565; Hill v. State, 250 Ark. 812, 467 S.W.2d 179. The jury's conclusion on the credibility of the witnesses is binding on this court. Pope v. State, 262 Ark. 476, 557 S.W.2d 887; King v. State, 194 Ark. 157, 106 S.W.2d 582; Butler v. State, 192 Ark. 802, 95 S.W.2d 636. The jury obviously resolved these questions adversely to appellant. We cannot say that a reasonable mind could not have reached the jury's conclusion from all the evidence. We do not agree with appellant that, as a matter of law, the facts showed that Martin was about to commit a felony involving force or violence or about to use deadly physical force, either lawfully or unlawfully. The jury could have found, and apparently did find, from the testimony of eyewitnesses that Martin was only attempting to deter his pursuer from shooting him with the pistol. The jurors were not required to believe that Martin then had a knife in one hand or, if he did, that he ever attempted to use it as a weapon. The jury was not required to accept appellant's testimony as to what happened before the emergence of Martin on the front porch, particularly in view of the differences in his accounts of the events. It could even totally reject evidence that Martin was the original aggressor. The jury was not required to accept Thomas's testimony as uncontradicted, and we are not required to so view it. McCray v. State, 254 Ark. 601, 494 S.W.2d 708; Sanders v. State, 258 Ind. 11, 279 N.E.2d 194 (1972); Cook v. State, 46 Ala.App. 663, 248 So. 2d 158 (1971); People v. Amata, 270 Cal. App. 2d 575, 75 Cal. Rptr. 860 (1969). See also, State v. Monaco, 230 N.W.2d 485 (Iowa, 1975); Hudson v. State, 77 Ark. 334, 91 S.W. 299; Clark v. State, 246 Ark. 1151, 442 S.W.2d 225; Lindsey v. State, 172 Ark. 1176, 288 S.W. 915; Lucius v. State, 116 Ark. 260, 170 S.W. 1016. The jury had a right to accept that part of his statement and testimony it believed to be true and to reject that part it believed to be false. Anderson v. State, 210 Ark. 548, 197 S.W.2d 36; Smith v. State, 216 Ark. 1, 223 S.W.2d 1011, cert. den. 339 U.S. 916, 70 S. Ct. 562, 94 L. Ed. 1341 (1950); Smith v. State, 218 Ark. 725, 238 S.W.2d 649; Cranford v. State, 156 Ark. 39, 245 S.W. 189; Howard v. State, 34 Ark. 433. If the jury believed, as it could from the evidence, that Martin did not engage in conduct that created a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury to Thomas, or that the circumstances did not demonstrate that Martin acted with extreme indifference to the value of human life, then it could not have concluded that he had committed an aggravated assault, as appellant suggests. See Ark.Stat.Ann. § 41-1604 (Repl.1977). The jury was not bound to conclude that Martin was about to commit battery in the first degree, as appellant *37 contends, because it was not unreasonable to believe that Martin did not act, or intend to act, with the purpose of causing serious physical injury to Thomas, or of seriously or permanently disfiguring him or of destroying, amputating or permanently disabling a member or organ of Thomas's body or that the circumstances manifested that he was acting with extreme indifference to the value of human life. See Ark. Stat.Ann. § 41-1601(1) (Repl.1977). Even if the jury believed that Martin was the original aggressor, it was not established, as a matter of law, that the use of deadly physical force by Thomas was justified even though, as an occupant of the house, he was not required to retreat. Ark. Stat.Ann. § 41-507(2)(a). It was also Martin's dwelling. Appellant admits that he chased Martin from the dwelling onto the front porch. Even if Martin was the original aggressor, if he had, in good faith, withdrawn from the encounter, and the danger to Thomas was no longer immediate, urgent and pressing, Thomas was not justified in pursuing him to continue the fight or to use deadly physical force on him. McDonald v. State, 104 Ark. 317, 149 S.W. 95. The time lapse between the throwing of the plate and the fatal shot may have been such that the jury concluded that Thomas acted knowingly and deliberately in a spirit of revenge which manifested an extreme indifference to the value of human life. The judgment is affirmed. We agree. HARRIS, C. J., and HOLT and HICKMAN, JJ. [1] Even though appellant's testimony at the trial seems to assert accident rather than justification, he does not contend, on appeal, that the slaying was accidenteal. [2] Appellant's aunt was the mother of Lawrence Evans.