Blanton v. State

• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: JONES
• Citation: Blanton v. State, 458 S.W.2d 373, 249 Ark. 181 (Ark. 1970)
• Decision Date: 12 October 1970
• Docket Number: No. 5448,5448
• Parties: Kenneth Ray BLANTON, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

Page 373

458 S.W.2d 373

249 Ark. 181

Kenneth Ray BLANTON, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. 5448.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Oct. 12, 1970.

Victor Hlavinka, Texarkana, Tex., Richard S. Arnold, Texarkana, Ark., and Morris S. Arnold, London, England, for appellant.

Joe Purcell, Atty. Gen., Sam Gibson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

JONES, Justice.

Kenneth Ray Blanton was convicted of first degree murder in the Miller County Circuit Court and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He has appealed to this court and has designated 18 points on which he relies for reversal. All of the points allege error in law, so we only state the facts necessary for consideration of the assigned errors in the order presented.

About 10 p.m. on Sunday, December 15, 1968, the nude body of Winn Smith was found by Sandy Carter and Don La Rue in the bathroom of his apartment in Texarkana, Arkansas. Smith's bed was saturated with blood and a trail of blood led from Mr. Smith's bedroom through a hallway to the bathroom where his body was found. Two teeth and fragments of a heavy bronze candleholder were found on the bedroom floor. A broken candleholder and a butcher knife were found in the bathtub and Mr. Smith's automobile, his wrist watch and wallet were missing. His trousers, with the hip pockets turned inside out, were found on the living room floor. Mr. Smith's body bore 17 stab wounds in addition to scalp and face lacerations. He was obviously the victim of a brutal murder. Abont midnight, December 16, 1968, the appellant, Kenneth Ray Blanton, was apprehended while asleep in Mr. Smith's late model Chrysler automobile in a roadside park near Sierra Blanca, Texas. He was returned to Texarkana and put on trial under a plea of 'not guilty.'

Appellant's point I:

'The trial court erred in denying defendant's motion for payment of public funds to supply defendant with investigative psychiatric, and other services necessary to his defense.'

Under this point the appellant argues in his brief as follows:

'The Supreme Court of the United States has not addressed directly the issue of auxiliary assistance on due process grounds, but the question has been considered by several lower federal courts. Each of them has concluded--we think erroneously--that the due-process clause does not require that such auxiliary assistance be provided by the state. Typical of these cases is United States ex rel. Smith v. Baldi, 192 F.2d 540 (3d Cir.) (1951).'

The appellant insists that we should adopt the view expressed in the dissenting opinion in Baldi where, as stated by the appellant, the dissenting justice said:

'(A)s civilization progresses our ideas of fundamental fairness necessarily enlarge themselves. * * * the requirement(s) of due process * * * would not be met by the appointment of a layman as counsel. The appointment of counsel for a deaf mute would not constitute due process of law unless an interpreter also was available. Nor, in our opinion, would the appointment of counsel learned in the law fulfill the requirement of due process if that counsel required the assistance of a psychiatrist in order to prepare an insane client's defense.'

We conclude that the opinions of the federal courts as expressed by the majority in United States ex rel. Smith v. Baldi, supra, are correct. It may be true that 'as civilization progresses our ideas of fundamental fairness necessarily enlarge themselves,' but civilization has not progressed to the point where only insane persons commit murders. When civilization does arrive at that point, perhaps the presumption of insanity will attend the commission of crime and the state will owe a duty to one charged with murder, to prove him innocent by reason of insanity rather than guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. At the present state of civilization, and under the laws of this state, one charged with the commission of crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty; and the state bears the burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt with the defense of insanity available to the defendant. The state has always had the burden of proving the defendant guilty and has never had the duty nor the authority of proving the defendant innocent by reason of insanity. The majority opinion in United States ex rel. Smith v. Baldi, supra, went on to say:

'Due process does not go so far as to require a hearing on mental condition in any particular manner or at any particular stage in the proceedings. Certainly it does not require a hearing in limine on the question as counsel for relator contend. The most that it requires, in our view, is an opportunity to have adequate hearing on the question before guilt is finally determined.

Furthermore, we have great difficulty in accepting as a proposition of constitutional law that one accused of crime is entitled to receive at public expense all the collateral assistance needed to make his defense. * * *'

Consequently we feel constrained to follow the majority opinions of the federal courts as announced in United States ex rel. Smith v. Baldi, supra, and our own majority opinions. In Green v. State, 222 Ark. 308, 259 S.W.2d 142, the defendant was committed to the State Hospital and found insane. The court then appointed a panel of doctors who found him sane. He was tried and convicted and we reversed, holding that the court was without authority to appoint such panel. See also Hale v. State, (1969), 246 Ark. ---, 440 S.W.2d 550. The appellant did not plead insanity as a defense in the case at bar; had he done so, or had he indicated an intent to do so, psychiatric examinations would have been available without expense to him under §§ 43--1301--43--1312, supra.

Appellant's point II:

'The trial court erred in denying defendant's motion for a confidential psychiatric examination to be administered by the Arkansas State Hospital.'

This assignment of error is also answered in Hale v. State, supra, and we find no merit in appellant's contentions under this point.

Appellant's point III:

'The trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to dismiss the prosecution on the grounds that it was not initiated by a grand jury indictment.'

Appellant's contention under this point was laid to rest in the 1937 case of Penton v. State, 194 Ark. 503, 109 S.W.2d 131, and the numerous cases that followed. See Washington v. State, 213 Ark. 218, 210 S.W.2d 307, and the cases there cited. We find no merit in appellant's point III.

Appellant's point IV:

'The trial court erred in overruling defendant's motion to quash the jury panel for racial discrimination practiced in its selection.'

Under this assignment the appellant argues that the jury commissioners practiced racial discrimination in selecting the jury panel by systematically excluding Negroes therefrom. The appellant is a white man. In the case of Woodruff v. Breazeale, D.C., 291 F.Supp. 130 (1967), the issue was whether the petitioner (a white man) could claim the systematic exclusion of Negroes from the jury lists, and from the grand and petit juries of Calhoun County, Mississippi, where he was indicted and tried, as a violation of his rights under the 14th Amendment. The court in that case quoting from the decision in Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261, 67 S.Ct. 1613, 91 L.Ed. 2043, said:

'This Court however, has never entertained a defendant's objections to exclusions from the jury except when he was a member of the excluded class.'

This decision was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 401 F.2d 997. We reached the same results in Haraway v. State, 203 Ark. 912, 159 S.W.2d 733, where a Negro alleged prejudicial error because all white persons were purposely excluded from the jury that indicted him. We find no merit in appellant's point IV.

Appellant's point V:

'The trial court erred in denying defendant's motion that jury commissioners be instructed to make their selection of veniremen upon a random selection basis.'

We find no merit in this assignment. The court instructed the commissioners to select the prospective jurors from all walks of life, from both sexes, from all races and from all parts of the community with regard only to the statutory qualifications of jurors. They were instructed to practice no discrimination in making their selections.

Appellant's point VI:

'The trial court erred in denying defendant's motion for a continuance so as to allow defendant to investigate the nature and make-up of the jury panel to determine its economic class composition.'

This assignment is likewise without merit. In the case of Figeroa v. State, 244 Ark. 457, 425 S.W.2d 516, we said:

'Whether a case should be continued or not is generally a matter resting within the sound discretion of the trial court, and unless it clearly appears that the refusal to grant a continuance is an abuse of discretion so as to operate as a denial of justice, the trial court's action does not constitute a ground for a new trial. Allison v. State, 74 Ark. 444, 86 S.W. 409; Smith v. State, 219 Ark. 829, 245 S.W.2d 226. Absent a showing by the moving party that he has exercised due diligence, the trial court will not be held to have abused its discretion in refusing to grant the motion. Bullard v. State, 159 Ark. 435, 252 S.W. 584; Bowman v. State, 213 Ark. 407, 210 S.W.2d 798; Gerlach v. State, 217 Ark. 102, 229 S.W.2d 37.'

We hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in the case at bar.

Appellant's points VII and VIII are as follows:

'VII. The special trial judge erred in overruling defendant's motion to disqualify the jury commissioners on the grounds that racial discrimination was practiced in their selection.

VIII. The special trial judge erred in excluding testimony by the trial judge relative to possible discrimination practiced by him in selecting jury commissioners for other counties within his circuit.'

These points are so closely related to each other and they both are so...