Court Opinion

ID: 9672622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:58:04.28229+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:17.504397
License: Public Domain

Sam Robinson, Associate Justice (concurring). This is an appeal from an order of the trial court overruling a motion made by appellants to dismiss the charge against them. Appellants alleged in the motion that they had been put in jeopardy on a previous occasion and to put them on trial again would place them in jeopardy the second time in violation of Article 2, Sec. 10 of the Constitution of the State of Arkansas. The principle announced in Jones v. State, 230 Ark. 18, 320 S. W. 2d 645, is squarely in point with the case at bar, and is authority for the proposition that an appeal will lie from an order overruling a motion to dismiss where it is alleged in the motion that if the defendant was again put on trial it would amount to double jeopardy. On November 17, 1962, the appellants were arrested on a charge of forgery. They were placed in the county jail and have been there since that time. On November 27, 1962, the prosecuting attorney filed in circuit court a felony information charging the defendants with forgery. They were indigent and unable to employ a lawyer. Article 2, Sec. 10 of the Constitution provides: “In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial . . . ”. Ark. Stats. 43-1203 provides that if a defendant is unable to employ counsel, it shall be the duty of the trial court to appoint a lawyer to conduct the defense. Article 2, Sec. 8 of the Constitution provides: “. . . No person, for the same offense, shall be twice put in jeopardy of life or liberty . . .”. Jeopardy attaches when a jury is sworn to try the case. In Whitmore v. State, 43 Ark. 271, the court said: “This court has, heretofore, drawn the line where jeopardy begins at the swearing in of the jury to try the issue. And this is in accordance with the overwhelming weight of authority and with the best considered cases. If, after that, the jury is discharged without an obvious necessity and without the defendant’s consent, express or implied, he cannot be again placed upon trial for the same offense, where life or liberty is involved.” In construing the double jeopardy provision of the Constitution we have held, however, as pointed out by the majority, the constitutional interdiction against double jeopardy is not applicable where a jury has been discharged because of an “overruling necessity”. There does not appear to have been such a necessity in the case at bar. The same information that developed during the trial regarding the mental condition of the defendant could very easily have been obtained by the prosecution months before the case came on for trial.