Giles v. State
| Decision Date | 28 January 1935 |
| Docket Number | Criminal 3916 |
| Citation | 78 S.W.2d 70,190 Ark. 218 |
| Parties | GILES v. STATE |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Miller Circuit Court; Dexter Bush, Judge; reversed.
Judgment reversed, and cause dismissed.
Will Steel, for appellant.
Walter L. Pope, Attorney General, and Leon B. Catlett, Assistant for appellee.
Appellant was tried for and has been convicted of a violation of § 2731, Crawford & Moses' Digest, alleged to have been committed "by stamping with his feet the said grave of Melvin Brackman, and by urinating upon the grave of the said Melvin Brackman, with the unlawful, wilful, felonious and malicious intent then and there to deface and injure the grave of the said Melvin Brackman."
The principal witness for the State, and the one whose testimony had the highest probative value as tending to support the conviction, was Muriel Lawrence. This witness, a boy 17 years of age, was a nephew of the deceased, and he and a young man named Paul Bangston were engaged in burning old shingles and other debris which had accumulated about a church upon which a new roof had been placed and certain other repairs made. The cemetery in which Brackman's grave is located is adjacent to the church and is a part of the church grounds. Young Lawrence testified that while he and Bangston were thus employed defendant and one Pressley Davis drove up to the church yard in a wagon, which they left standing in front of the church. After getting out of the wagon defendant and Davis started walking in the direction of Brackman's grave, and the route they pursued led them not only to this grave, but also to the grave where Davis had buried his child. As defendant and Davis walked away young Lawrence heard defendant say: "He came down in the bottom with his big gun on and tried to run him and his little girl off, and he wouldn't do no s of a b that way." Objection was made to the admission of this testimony, upon the ground that it was not shown to whom defendant referred, but the court, in overruling the objection, stated that this was a question of fact to be passed upon by the jury.
These questions were asked the witness and the following answers were made to the questions: He was asked: "You didn't see him stomp the grave?" and he answered, "No, sir."
Bangston gave testimony to substantially the same effect.
Other witnesses who were told of the incident later inspected the grave and found the tracks of some one who had walked over the grave for its entire length, and on its side and in the sand out of which the mound was made covering the grave there was found a washed-out place such as a stream of urine might have made.
Other witnesses, including the sheriff of the county, gave testimony from which the inference might have been drawn that the person to whom defendant referred in the remark which Lawrence overheard was the deceased Brackman.
Davis testified that he went to the cemetery to clean off the grave of his child, and to mark off the ground which he wished to reserve for the graves of other members of his family, and defendant accompanied him and in assisting him, pulled up two or three little bushes and stepped off the ground as Davis requested him to do, and that "Then Berry [defendant] and myself walked down to where he had measured this off here, and...
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Hill v. State
...by construction unless it is completely within the words of the statute. Lewis v. State, 220 Ark. 259, 247 S.W.2d 195; Giles v. State, 190 Ark. 218, 78 S.W.2d 70. This rule is applied in determining the meaning of the word 'consent' in criminal statutes. Baker v. State, 147 Tenn. 421, 248 S......
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Trice v. City of Pine Bluff
...law we inquire into only what the statute means. Lewis v. State, 220 Ark. 259, 263, 247 S.W.2d 195, 197 (1952), citing Giles v. State, 190 Ark. 218, 78 S.W.2d 70 (1935). It is this difference that makes a criminal proceeding a poor vehicle for resolving a zoning dispute such as the one befo......
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Lewis v. State, 4685
...construction or intendment, create offenses under statutes which are not in express terms created by the Legislature.'' Giles v. State, 190 Ark. 218, 78 S.W.2d 70, 72. 'It would violate the accepted canons of interpretation to declare an act to come within the criminal laws of the state mer......
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Haskins v. State, CR78-112
...can be added or taken away from precise or express language of the act. Holford v. State, 173 Ark. 989, 294 S.W. 33; Giles v. State, 190 Ark. 218, 78 S.W.2d 70. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court has stated that due process requires that a person on parole or probation be given a hea......