Carr v. State

• Decision Date: 04 February 1907
• Citation: Carr v. State, 99 S.W. 831, 81 Ark. 589 (Ark. 1907)
• Parties: CARR v. STATE
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

99 S.W. 831

81 Ark. 589

CARR v. STATE

Supreme Court of Arkansas

February 4, 1907

Appeal from St. Francis Circuit Court; Hance N. Hutton, Judge affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

R. J Williams, for appellant.

1. The court erred in permitting the prosecuting attorney to challenge two jurors peremptorily after they had been accepted as jurors. Kirby's Digest, §§ 2356-7 2347.

2. It was error to permit the prosecuting attorney to ask defendant if he had not been criminally intimate with a certain woman, and if he had not threatened to kill any man in the community that went to see her or had anything to do with her.

3. It was also error to refuse the 3rd and 4th instructions asked for by defendant.

Wm. F. Kirby, Attorney General, and Daniel Taylor, for appellee.

1. There was no error in permitting the challenges of the jurors. 70 Ark. 337.

2. The question with reference to appellant's intimacy with the woman, etc., was on cross-examination, and was admissible as affecting the credibility of the witness. 16 Ark. 534.

3. The third and fourth instructions asked by defendant were properly refused. 67 Ark. 417; Hughes, Instructions to Juries, §§ 310-11.

OPINION

BATTLE, J.

Alfred Carr was indicted for murder in the first degree committed by killing Bill Civil, and was tried and convicted of that offense; and he appealed to this court.

Appellant says that the trial court erred in permitting the State to peremptorily challenge two jurors after they had been examined and accepted as jurors in the case. But this was not error. It was lawful to do so. Allen v. State, 70 Ark. 337, 68 S.W. 28.

He next complains of the court for admitting the testimony of a witness named Jim Wallace, in which he testified that appellant, at the time he was arrested, said that he expected to be arrested, and that if he killed Bill Civil he was drunk, and that one Cook advised him to submit to arrest and go with the sheriff, and assured him that he would be protected. The testimony was admissible as tending to show a confession.

Appellant testified in his own behalf. He says that the court erred in permitting the prosecuting attorney to ask him "if he had not been criminally intimate with one Emma Simms, and if he had not threatened to kill any man in that community that ever went to see her or had anything to say to her." He answered in the negative. The question was proper on cross-examination, and if it was not it was not prejudicial.

He insists that the court erred in refusing to instruct the jury as follows:

"3. The jury is instructed that in cases depending on circumstantial evidence every circumstance in the chain of circumstances, necessary to convict the defendant, must be established beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, and...