Court Opinion

ID: 9778943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:27:02.630256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:16.251660
License: Public Domain

David Newbern, Justice, dissenting. Johnny Lee Hill, or whatever his name may be, is guilty of something, but the State has not proven him guilty of murder. I agree with all the parts of the majority opinion, but when they are assembled they do not add up to a whole we can label “substantial evidence” of murder. The state has come very close, but that is not enough. Our system of criminal justice is designed on the premise that it is better to let ten guilty persons go free than to convict one who is innocent of the crime charged. The problem with the State’s evidence is that there is nothing to place Hill at the scene of the crime. An investigator testified he had determined that a rifle was missing from Sturdivant’s home, but there was no evidence showing that the rifle seen by the truckers in the Oldsmobile was the one which had been owned by Sturdivant. An investigator determined that Sturdivant’s Visa card was missing, but there is nothing to show that it had been in the house, rather than in the car, assuming it was taken by Hill and used by him to make purchases. The majority opinion asks: “If Hill did not kill Sturdivant or participate, in his murder, why was Sturdivant’s vehicle in his possession?” Several scenarios are then suggested, and the conclusion is reached that none of them is “equally as reasonable as the conclusion that Hill either murdered or participated in the murder of Gary Sturdivant.” Missing is the reason none of them is as likely. Suppose Hill had been one of the three otherwise unidentified men who entered Sturdivant’s trailer on the night of Saturday, May 23, 1987. How can we know he did not simply steal the car and leave the two others with Sturdivant? How do we know that he did not simply steal the car, having had no connection with these visitors? Assuming he stole the car, how do we know the rifle and the credit card, and for that matter Sturdivant’s billfold, were not in the car at the time he stole it? What proof is there that he was inside Sturdivant’s trailer when the crime was committed there, assuming it was committed in the trailer? It is unquestionable that circumstantial evidence may be sufficient to constitute substantial evidence. It is equally unquestionable that circumstantial evidence may not be sufficient. See Johnson v. State, 210 Ark. 881, 197 S.W.2d 936 (1946). To be sufficient, circumstantial evidence must “exclude every other hypothesis inconsistent with innocence.” Smith v. State, 264 Ark. 874, 575 S.W.2d 677 (1979). Here the circumstantial evidence does not quite meet that standard. The majority opinion cites Bennett v. State, 297 Ark. 115, 759 S.W.2d 799 (1988), as an example of a murder conviction based on circumstantial evidence. There was no doubt in that case that the victim and the defendant were together at the time she died. The defendant admitted as much. We found there was substantial evidence, based on circumstances, to show the defendant pushed his wife off a bridge rather than witnessing her accidental fall. That is a far cry from this case where the circumstances support no more than the allegation that Lee stole Sturdivant’s automobile. Also cited is Still v. State, 294 Ark. 117, 740 S.W.2d 926 (1987), where the defendant admitted to having buried her paramour’s body in her front yard. Her story was that he had committed suicide and she had buried him in the yard without telling anyone because her first husband, who also died of a gunshot wound, had been taken from her and buried in a place she could not visit. There, as here, we had lies showing guilt, but we also had evidence that the defendant specifically was trying to hide the death of the victim. Here we have only a showing that Hill was trying to hide something, and that something could just as easily have been theft of the car as murder of Sturdivant. The conviction should be reversed and the case dismissed. Purtle and Dudley, JJ., join in this dissent.