Opinion ID: 1786345
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the court erred in overruling the motion for continuance.

Text: The record reflects that appellants Freeman and Roland were arrested on July 10, 1974, and thereafter had contact with an attorney who apparently arranged to represent them. On September 26, 1974, one day before trial, Roland and Freeman filed a motion for continuance, [2] stating that they had learned they were required to pay a fee of $5,000 each to the attorney, and that it was impossible for them to pay such a fee; that they had been assured that they would be defended by the attorney up until September 18, at which time they were informed that he would not defend them; that they then contacted present counsel and made arrangements to employ him; that they had been offered the services of the public defender's office of Washington County, but preferred to retain their own counsel. It was asserted that it was impossible for present counsel to prepare fully and completely to defend them in the time allowed, and a continuance of not less than two weeks was sought. This motion was evidently presented to the court on the day of trial, and denied. Of course, a ruling upon a motion for continuance is within the sound discretion of the trial court, and the action of that tribunal will not be reversed absent a clear abuse of discretion. Nowlin v. State, 252 Ark. 870, 481 S.W.2d 320 and Perez v. State, 236 Ark. 921, 370 S.W.2d 613. In Perez , it was pointed out that the burden rests on an appellant to demonstrate an abuse of discretion by the trial court in denying a continuance. Actually, we have a number of cases where no abuse of discretion was found which involved lesser periods of time for preparation than in the instant case. In Brown v. State, 252 Ark. 846, 481 S.W.2d 366, we upheld the denial of a motion for continuance where a defendant changed counsel five days prior to trial; in Gathright v. State, 245 Ark. 840, 435 S.W.2d 433, a like ruling was upheld where new counsel was employed seven days prior to trial, and in Ebsen v. State, 249 Ark. 477, 459 S.W.2d 548, we likewise found no abuse of discretion where counsel was retained three days prior to trial after previous counsel had withdrawn due to the appellant's failure to pay him. In the case before us, counsel was retained nine days in advance of the trial. It might be pointed out that appellants have not shown in their motion, nor their brief, how, or why, they were incapable of preparing an adequate defense, i.e., there are no facts alleged or shown, only a bare allegation that there was not enough time. The motion also includes an allegation that counsel had been informed on September 25, 1974 of articles in the newspaper concerning said case that tend to prejudice the citizens of Washington County against these defendants and that an application for change of venue may be necessary to protect the rights of these defendants. This phase of the motion that a continuance should be granted is not mentioned in the argument, but, of course, we could hardly find an abuse of discretion where an attorney merely alleges that he might find it necessary to subsequently file an application for change of venue. We hold that the court did not err in failing to grant the motion.