Daniels v. State
| Decision Date | 10 October 1932 |
| Docket Number | Crim. 3816 |
| Citation | 53 S.W.2d 231,186 Ark. 255 |
| Parties | DANIELS v. STATE |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Miller Circuit Court; Dexter Bush, Judge; affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
Hal L Norwood, Attorney General, and Pat Mehaffy, Assistant, for appellee.
The appellant was indicted, tried and convicted of the crime of rape committed on a thirteen-year-old girl. He was represented by counsel as eminent as any in the State who conducted his defense in a courageous and able manner. During the trial timely objections were made and proper exceptions saved to the action of the court, and these were preserved in a motion for a new trial in which a number of assignments of error were made. We have carefully reviewed the evidence in the case, and find that it is ample to sustain the verdict and judgment of the trial court.
The prosecuting witness, a child of about thirteen years of age gave a circumstantial account of how she was ravished, stating that her assailant was a stranger to her, but that she observed certain peculiarities about him which she described immediately after she reached her home. She said that he was a young negro man; that he had two scars on the side of his neck, one tooth missing and a deformity of one eye. A negro answering this description had been seen a few hours preceding the commission of the crime in that vicinity, and appellant was taken in charge on the following day because he answered that description. An examination of the tracks at the scene of the crime showed that they were made by a shoe having a rubber heel with a hole in it and when these were compared with the shoes of appellant it was ascertained that they matched. After appellant was taken into custody he was delivered to the deputy sheriff and was allowed to talk with a negro minister. After some conversation the appellant admitted the crime, and when placed on the witness stand in his own behalf he did not deny having made the assault and stated that he had admitted it because his preacher told him it would be best to plead guilty; that he was frightened, and that was the reason he had made the confession. When testifying as a witness however, he stated that he did not remember where he was or what he did on the afternoon of the assault because he had found a quart jar of whiskey in the woods and had drunk about a pint of it and became so drunk that he did not remember whether he met the little girl or not and only remembered when he awoke in the woods late in the evening.
The witnesses who had seen appellant in the vicinity of the crime testified that he had no appearance of being under the influence of liquor, and one witness stated that appellant drew water from witness' well and made some inquiries as to where Bill Perry lived and told the witness his name.
The testimony, without the admission of the appellant, was ample to establish his identity, and it was also ample to establish the fact that the child had been ravished, and that the appellant had committed the crime. This, together with the admissions of the appellant and his testimony on the witness stand, was enough to lead to the conclusion of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The appellant was indicted in the name of Freeling Daniels. He and his father testified that his name was Frelorn Daniels, but a witness upon whose place appellant and his father had lived, and who was well acquainted with the appellant, testified that appellant's name was Freeling Daniels. One of the assignments of error was that the court erred "in refusing to hold that the name of the defendant was not Freeling Daniels and that his name was not idem sonans with the name of the defendant mentioned in the indictment." The court did not err in this regard because there was a conflict in the testimony as to whether appellant's name was Frelorn or Freeling Daniels, and for the further reason that there was no question as to the identity of the appellant. The mere fact that his name was incorrectly spelled in the indictment is not ground for reversal, as all the proof shows that he was the person intended to be charged with the crime. Joiner v. State, 113 Ark. 112, 167 S.W. 492; Bridger v. State, 122 Ark. 391, 183 S.W. 962; § 3017, Crawford & Moses' Digest.
Complaint is made of the court's action in refusing certain instructions asked by the appellant and to those given by the court at the request...
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