Bush v. State
| Decision Date | 16 May 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. CR76-232,CR76-232 |
| Citation | 261 Ark. 577,550 S.W.2d 175 |
| Parties | Shirley Irene BUSH, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Gene Worsham, Little Rock, for appellant.
Bill Clinton, Atty. Gen. by Joseph H. Purvis, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.
The appellant was convicted of capital murder committed in the perpetration of robbery and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Her principal points for reversal have to do with the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding of an intent to commit robbery and with the trial judge's communications with the jurors during their deliberations.
Upon the first point there was an issue of fact for the jury. Mrs. Bush and her husband, in hitch-hiking back to Arkansas after a trip to Florida, were picked up by the decedent, Billy John Jones, in his truck and carried from Columbia, Louisiana, to Conway, Arkansas. At a Conway truck stop Bush left his wife and Jones in the truck for a short while. According to the confession of Mrs. Bush (the only eye-witness), Jones climbed into the sleeper, took off his clothes, and tried to pull Mrs. Bush up into the sleeper, assertedly with the intention of raping her. Mrs. Bush had a knife, with which she fatally stabbed Jones, principally in his neck. Upon Bush's return the couple at first concealed the crime by driving the truck, with Jones's body in it, to an isolated spot and abandoning it. Mrs. Bush said in her confession that during that trip she was wearing some of Jones's clothes and took $40 from a wallet she found in one of the pockets. A few days later Bush reported the crime and the location of the truck to the police.
It is argued that Mrs. Bush committed the homicide in defending herself and not in the perpetration of robbery. The jury, however, was not required to accept her account, especially as she was an interested participant. Furthermore, Jones's widow testified that he had more than $300 in cash when he left home two days before his death. Thus there was substantial evidence to support a finding that robbery was the motive for the crime.
The judgment must be reversed, however, as a result of the circuit judge's communications with the jury, even though the opposing attorneys were also at fault.
The jury, after several hours of deliberation, reported that they were hopelessly divided. The lawyers in the case, thinking a mistrial to be imminent, discussed the possibility of a negotiated plea of guilty. The prosecutor insisted upon a 21-year sentence, but the defense was unwilling to recommend more than 12 years. The attorneys, in a novel but misguided effort to obtain helpful information, agreed that the judge might confer with the jury to determine two things only: their numerical division and the degree of homicide...
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