Court Opinion

ID: 9668656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:20:44.395825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:46.863518
License: Public Domain

Jim Johnson, Associate Justice, dissenting. This case is before us for the second time. I was convinced that the judgment in the former appeal, Mode v. State, 231 Ark. 477, 330 S. W. 2d 88, should have been affirmed and so voted. In that case I found no reversible error nor did I find any erroneous extension by this Court of the basic rules of criminal procedure. I view these rules as sacred rights which belong to every accused whether that person be guilty or innocent and consider any court’s extension of those rules beyond its province. The majority’s discussion of appellate procedure in felony cases gives me much concern. The majority has applied several rules of practice in a manner which seems inconsistent with the purpose of those rules. I find no statutory equivalent in felony appeals of the mandate of Ark. Stats. § 43-2723 in capital appeals. No doubt the purpose of the legislature in enacting § 43-2723 was to make certain that no conviction of a capital offense will be allowed to stand unless the defendant received a trial which was consistent with the fundamental standards of due process and procedural fairness. The statute requires the court to review the entire record for prejudicial error before affirming a conviction. If such error does appear the conviction must be reversed, whether the error was argued by counsel or not. The requirement in felony appeals to review all errors contained in the motion for new trial, whether or not argued in the appellant’s brief is an extension in case law of the duty imposed by § 43-2723. The same considerations underlying the statute are presented in felony appeals. In both instances it is my view that the duty of the court to examine the record for error is at an end when reversible error is found. Of course, the court may wish to continue to examine other assignments after finding reversible error. Rand v. State, 232 Ark. 909, 341 S. W. 2d 9. If this is done and those assignments are discussed and actual findings are made, I agree that on these points there is a binding determination. On a subsequent appeal the defendant would normally be precluded from arguing those same assignments of error which had actually been passed on. The reason for this is simply that those assignments, supported by the same proof, with the same objections and exceptions, would be as much without merit on the second appeal as on the first. On the previous appeal appellant argued only nine points in his brief. This Court in its opinion thoroughly discussed only two of these points and generally discussed the remaining seven points in the following language: “Appellant argues several other points, all of which we have examined, but we find no error other than the giving of Instruction No. 9.” Yet the record in the first appeal reveals that no less than 64 assignments of error were contained in the motion for new trial. It is my view that those assignments not argued in the nine points upon which this Court actually passed do not become the “law of the case.” The majority under the heading “Evidence of Good Character of Deceased” devotes the major portion of its opinion to an assignment of error which was contained in appellant’s motion for new trial in the first appeal. After a careful re-reading of the briefs in that case I have been unable to find one word of argument relative to this assignment contained in the nine points upon which this Court actually passed. Except for the discovery of the absence of an objection to testimony of the good character of the deceased on the first appeal, according to the majority opinion, consideration of this assignment also would have been foreclosed under their rule of “the law of the case.” Under my view this assignment is properly before this Court regardless of the absence .of an objection in the previous trial, since this Court did not actually pass upon this matter on the first appeal. With the point properly before us I am convinced that the majority opinion has effectively held that the entry of a plea of self-defense in a homicide case is sufficient to allow the prosecution to introduce evidence of the deceased’s reputation for peace and -quiet in rebuttal. It has never been the rule in homicide cases in this State to allow the prosecution to introduce evidence of the deceased’s, reputation for peace and quiet when the issue of self-defense is raised. As was said in Bloomer v. State, 75 Ark. 297, 87 S. W. 438: “. . . It is now well settled that such evidence on the part of the prosecution should not be admitted unless the defendant has undertaken to attack the character of the deceased in that respect. Ben v. State, 37 Ala. 103; Bishop, Crim. Proc. (3rd ed.), § 612.” That rule was reaffirmed in Carr v. State, 147 Ark. 524, 227 S. W. 776; and in Fisher v. State, 149 Ark. 48, 231 S. W. 181. As Justice Wood observed in Bridges v. State, 169 Ark. 335, 275 S. W. 671, the Carr and Bloomer cases are not in conflict on this point: “. . . As stated in the opinion, the question presented by the record in the Carr case was ‘whether a character witness who testified to the good reputation of the deceased could, on cross-examination, be interrogated concerning specific acts of violence on the part of the deceased within the personal knowledge of the witness to test the soundness of the statement of the witness tending to establish the good character of the deceased.’ “The question in the case at bar, therefore, was not presented and not under consideration in the Carr case, and it was not in the thought of the court in that case to announce a doctrine in conflict with the decision of this court in Bloomer v. State, supra, which doctrine has been since approved in Fisher v. State, supra. Taking the opinion of the Carr case in connection with thu facts of that case, the language upon which the Attorney General relies only meant that the general reputation of the deceased for peace and quiet was admissible in evidence by the State to rebut the testimony given by the defendant in which an attach had been made upon such reputation, and therefore the Carr case is not out of harmony with our former decisions.” [Emphasis supplied.]. I do not agree with the majority in their conclusion that a plea of self-defense was not entered in the Bridges case, supra. Be that as it may, in my view neither the Carr case nor the Bridges case, as to the facts contained therein, aid the Court in deciding the present appeal since it was assumed in both instances that the defendant’s testimony was or was not an attack, on the deceased’s reputation for peace and quiet. Certainly the right of a defendant upon entry of a plea of self-defense to show that the deceased was a violent and dangerous man can not be questioned. Palmore v. State, 29 Ark. 248; Edwards v. State, 208 Ark. 231, 185 S. W. 2d 556. In every case where the defendant has introduced evidence in support of his plea the issue remains to be decided whether that evidence constituted an attack on the deceased’s reputation for peace and quiet that would allow the prosecution to offer evidence of the deceased’s good reputation in rebuttal. Carr v. State, supra; Bridges v. State, supra. In the case at bar the defendant’s evidence was not sufficient to constitute a general attack on the deceased’s reputation for peace and quiet to allow the prosecution to offer evidence in rebuttal. Although the incidents that were related in the testimony did occur over a period of time, in each instance the testimony tended to show only the ill feeling and animosity of the deceased toward the defendant. Under this view Bryant v. State, 95 Ark. 239, 129 S. W. 295, is distinguishable from the present case. As that portion of the opinion quoted by the majority indicates the widow of the deceased testified on cross-examination that the deceased ‘ ‘ was quick to get mad and fight, and he was a brave man, and would fight at the drop of a hat.” This testimony clearly was a direct attack on the reputation of the deceased, whereas the testimony in this case is evidence of the ill feeling of the deceased toward the defendant and that the deceased was the aggressor. The cases cited in the majority opinion from foreign jurisdictions announcing a doctrine contrary to our own, might be persuasive to me if this were a matter of first impression in this state, but, as indicated above, such is not the case. The text writers have long recognized the existence of the minority rule, and have never placed Arkansas in that group. 1 Wigmore, Evidence, § 63 (3rd Ed., 1949); Note, 3 Ark. L. Rev. 464 (1949); Anno., 34 A. L. R. 2d 451 (1954). Therefore, it is my opinion that whatever may be the ruling elsewhere, I consider our own cases sound, and here refuse to be a party to the extension of our basic rules of criminal procedure. For the reasons stated above, I respectfully dissent.