Court Opinion

ID: 9664598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:22:14.75722+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:07.474479
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, Justice, dissenting. The majority, as I read the briefs, are reversing the trial court’s judgment upon a ground that the appellant’s attorney has not seen fit to argue in this court; that is, that Officer Hale was not called by the State to testify about Smith’s confession. It was in the case of Smith v. State, 254 Ark. 538, 494 S.W. 2d 489 (1973), that we first considered the possibility that the State is under a duty to call all witnesses, other than casual ones, who participated in obtaining a defendant’s confession. There Smith’s counsel argued the point in this court, citing cases from other jurisdictions. We found the argument convincing and adopted the rule now relied upon by the majority. It was a decided innovation in our law, for in earlier cases we had upheld dozens of confessions which were not attested by every officer who took part in the interrogation. The Smith case was decided six months before this appellant’s brief was filed, but counsel does not cite that case. Neither does his brief state the rule announced in Smith, that the State must call all participating interrogators. In fact, the proof indicating its possible applicability is mentioned only casually, in this sentence: “The signing of the confession was witnessed by Detective Sergeant J. F. Hale, but the state did not bother to call him to testify regarding the circumstances.” It is hard to believe that counsel chose that sentence as a means of asserting reversible error under the rule of the Smith case. I have no doubt that the appellant’s attorney is going to be genuinely surprised upon learning the ground upon which he has obtained a new trial. If we could say with assurance that that new trial is going to benefit the appellant by correcting an injustice that occurred at the first trial, I would not be inclined to note my disagreement with the majority opinion. But of course that possibility is extremely remote. We have no idea what Officer Hale will say about the confession, but it is reasonable to assume that defense counsel, in preparing for the trial, interviewed the officer and found nothing favorable in his expected testimony. Thus in all probability the new trial will be a waste of time and expense, which is doubtless why the point was not argued in the appellant’s brief.