Court Opinion

ID: 9680301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:28:37.031888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:27.544281
License: Public Domain

Conley Byrd, Justice, dissenting. Article 2, Section 8, our Constitution of 1874, provides: “No person, for the same offense, shall be twice put in jeopardy of life or liberty.” Our laws defining murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree and the penalty therefor, are contained in chapter 22 of Vol. 4 of Ark. Stat. Ann. (Repl. 1964). Those laws are as follows: “§ 41-2201. Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, in the peace of the State, with malice aforethought, either express or implied. § 41-2205. All murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of wilful, deliberate, malicious and premediated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration of or in the attempt to perpetrate, arson, rape, robbery, burglary or larceny, shall be deemed murder in the first degree. § 41-2206. All other murder shall be deemed murder in the second degree. § 41-2227. Every person convicted of murder in the first degree, or as accessory before the fact to such murder, shall suffer death (by hanging by the neck) [or life imprisonment]. § 41-2228. Every person convicted of murder in the second degree shall be sentenced to undergo imprisonment in the penitentiary for a period of not less than five [5] years nor more than twenty-one [21] years. From a review o£ the foregoing statutes and our constitutional provisions, it appears to me that, when the State by information charged appellant with murder in the first degree committed while perpetrating the offense of robbery, appellant was put in jeopardy of losing his life or of being imprisoned for life and that the offense of robbery was charged for the purpose of putting his life or liberty in jeopardy for a period beyond the 21 years maximum provided for murder in the second degree, as murder in the second degree is defined in Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-2206, supra, It therefore follows that when the State again charges him with the crime of robbery, they have for the second time put his life and/or liberty in jeopardy for the crime of robbery. The majority view in effect changes the double jeopardy clause to read that no person shall twice be prosecuted for the same offense. However the Constitution provides, “. . . no person, for the same offense, shall be twice put in jeopardy of life or liberty.” For these reasons I respectfully dissent.