Acres v. State
| Decision Date | 05 September 1972 |
| Parties | David L. ACRES, Appellant, v. STATE of Tennessee, Appellee. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Robert L. Badger, Jack H. McPherson, Jr., Kingston, for appellant.
David M. Pack, Atty. Gen., State of Tennessee, Charles W. Cherry, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, Walter E. Fischer, Robert T. Beaty, Asst. Dist. Attys. Gen., James town, for appellee.
The defendant, David L. Acres, was indicted along with a co-defendant, James Eads, in the Criminal Court of Anderson County for murder in the first degree, an armed robbery.
The indictment in the murder charge, being Case No. 10602 reads as follows:
'The Grand jurors for the State of Tennessee, duly elected, impaneled, sworn, and charged to inquire in and for the body of the County of Anderson in the State aforesaid, upon their oath, present that James Thomas Eads and David L. Acres late of the said County, heretofore, to wit, on or about the 22nd day of December, 1969, in the County aforesaid, did then and unlawfully, feloniously, willfully, maliciously, deliberately, premeditately and with malice aforethought with a pistol shoot and kill Charles C. Wilder and did then and there commit murder in the first degree against the peace and dignity of the State of Tennessee.'
The indictment in the armed robbery case, being Case No. 10605, reads as follows:
'The Grand Jurors for the State of Tennessee, duly elected, impaneled, sworn, and charged to inquire in and for the body of the County of Anderson in the State aforesaid, upon their oath, present that James Thomas Eads and David L. Acres late of the said County, heretofore, to wit, on or about the 22nd day of December, A.D. 1969 in the County aforesaid, did then and there unlawfully, feloniously and forcibly take from the person of Charles C. Wilder, a red Volkswagon, of the value of $1,500.00 by violence and putting him, the said Charles C. Wilder, in fear by use of a deadly weapon, to wit; a pistol with which the said defendant did shoot the said Charles C. Wilder against the peace and dignity of the State of Tennessee.'
The facts, from review of the record, show that the defendant Acres and his co-defendant Eads escaped from Eastern State Hospital on December 22, 1969. They went to Acres' brother's home in Knoxville for the purpose of obtaining an automobile that belonged to Acres, but his brother refused him permission to drive it due to the fact that he owed him some money on the automobile. They then hitchhiked to Acres' mother's home in Kingston, where one of them, the facts being in dispute, obtained a .22 caliber pistol and two steak knives, and continued hitchhiking to Anderson County, where they were picked up by the victim driving a Karmann Ghia Volkswagen. During this drive one of them, and this is in dispute, commandeered this automobile at gunpoint.
The facts are much in dispute about who killed the victim, but he was shot near Oliver Spings and later died. A witness saw the little sports car pull into his driveway and then noticed blows and a struggle among the three occupants of the car. This witness related that Eads knocked on his door and told him to call the police. He noticed Acres standing alongside the car rifling the wallet of the victim, although Eads testified that he (Eads) robbed the victim. The victim was found in the back seat compartment of the car bleeding from a bullet wound in his head. He died the next day in a hospital in Knoxville. The two, Eads and Acres, were apprehended a few hours afterwards, with both hailing a police car. The officer related that they were laughing and cutting up. The defendant Eads testified that in a struggle over the gun Acres shot the victim. The defendant Acres denies this and places the blame on Eads for the slaying.
The co-defendant, Eads, elected to plead guilty to the armed robbery charge, and according to the record, was given a sentence of fifty years, the record being silent as to what disposition would be made of the murder case, it being apparent that the defendant Eads, in order to avoid trial in the murder case, testified as a witness for the State against the young sixteen year old defendant Acres.
The jury found the defendant Acres guilty in both cases, and recommended a sentence of 35 years in Case No. 10602 finding him guilty of murder in the first degree; the jury also found the defendant Acres guilty of robbery as charged in the indictment in Case No. 10605 and recommended a sentence of 15 years.
The Court overruled a motion for a new trial and sentenced the defendant Acres to 35 years in the State Penitentiary on the murder charge, and to 15 years in the penitentiary in the armed robbery case, the sentences to be served consecutively making a total of 50 years, the exact sentence received by Eads in his submission to the robbery...
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