Court Opinion

ID: 9643586
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:33:34.357054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:01.681793
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McFaddin, Justice (dissenting). The majority is correct in affirming as to the appellants, Broom-field and Matlock, since they failed to have any meritorious assignment in their motion for new trial; and an appellant can urge as alleged errors in the trial only the assignments contained in the motion for new trial. State v. Neil, 189 Ark. 324, 71 S. W. 2d 700; Suit v. State, 212 Ark. 584, 207 S. W. 2d 315. And by the same token, I submit that the majority should also affirm as to the appellant, Watkins, since his motion for new trial failed to assign the point that the majority is seizing upon and claiming to have been error. To elucidate: (1) As Regards Anna Gregory. Watkins’ only assignment of error as to anything that occurred during the testimony of Anna Gregory is contained in Assignment No. 8 in Watkins’ motion for new trial, and is in this language: “The Court erred in permitting the Prosecuting Attorney to impeach Anna Gregory, his own witness, over the objections and exceptions of the defendant.” The majority opinion copies what occurred during the testimony of Anna Gregory, which concludes with the Court’s remarks: “If a hostile witness, I am going to let him.” Now the law is well established that a hostile witness can be impeached. Shands v. State, 118 Ark. 460, 177 S. W. 18; Derrick v. State, 92 Ark. 237, 122 S. W. 506; and other cases collected in West’s Ark. Digest, “Witnesses”, § 380 (5). So the Court was correct in such statement, and Watkins’ assignment No. 8 in his motion for new trial was and is without merit. The point I emphasize is, that Watkins made no objection, or exception, or assignment in the motion for new trial, concerning anything the Court said or did in the course of Anna Gregory’s testimony, except the Assignment No. 8 in the motion for new trial, as previously copied; and that assignment did not relate to any “comment or admonition to Anna Gregory in the Jury’s presence.” So the majority has no right to leave the inference that Watkins objected to any admonition the Court might have given to Anna Gregory. (2) As Regards Shirley Mae Lambert. Watkins only assignment in his motion for new trial relates to what the Court said to her in chambers and outside the presence of the Jury. I cannot see how, under such circumstances, any statements made by the Court to this witness, Shirley Mae Lambert, could have influenced the Jury, because the Jury did not hear any of the statements. In each of the cases cited by the majority, the remarks of the Trial Court were made in the presence of the Jury. The cases are: Sharp v. State, 51 Ark. 147, 10 S. W. 228, 14 Am. St. Rep. 27; Crosby v. State, 154 Ark. 20, 241 S. W. 380; Williams v. State, 175 Ark. 752, 2 S. W. 2d 36. These cases have no application to the situation in the case at bar, and the majority has cited these cases (on remarks made by the Judge in the presence of the Jury) as applicable to the remarks here involved, which were made outside the presence of the Jury. When he took Shirley Mae Lambert and her attorneys away from the Jury and talked to the witness as he did, the Trial Judge was only trying to keep the Negro girl from committing perjury; and the conduct of the Trial Judge should be commended by this Court, rather than seized upon as a ground for reversal. For the reasons stated, I respectfully dissent as to the reversal of the judgment against Watkins. The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Millwee join in this dissent.