Glover v. State
| Decision Date | 22 September 1947 |
| Docket Number | 4454 |
| Citation | 204 S.W.2d 373,211 Ark. 1002 |
| Parties | Glover v. State |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Crittenden Circuit Court; Charles W. Light, Judge.
Affirmed.
Bruce Ivy, for appellant.
Guy E. Williams, Attorney General, and Oscar E Ellis, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Appellant, charged by information with having committed murder in the first degree by striking and beating E. A. Sides with a bottle, was by a trial jury found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for seven years. From a judgment imposing sentence in accordance with the verdict he has appealed.
For reversal it is first urged by appellant that the evidence was insufficient to establish that Sides died as a result of a blow inflicted by appellant.
The evidence tended to show that a group of negroes were gambling with dice on a sandbar or island in the Mississippi River when Sides and two other white men came up. Sides took part in the game and became angered at the manner in which some of the participants were handling the dice. Sides threatened violence, and appellant, who was standing by Sides at the time, but not playing, said "white folks, you won't hit me." Sides then pushed appellant, who pushed Sides, and Sides then slapped appellant. Appellant, who was left-handed, thereupon drew a "soda-water" bottle from his rear pocket and struck Sides on the right temple with the bottle. The blow staggered Sides, but he did not fall. He remained around the locality of the dice game for some time. He finally got someone to row him across the river and he was found unconscious on the river bank by searchers early the following morning. He died shortly thereafter.
The undertaker who handled Sides' body testified that there was a post-mortem examination which revealed a fracture and indentation of the skull on the side of Sides' head.
The difficulty occurred on June 19, 1938, but appellant was not found by the officers until shortly before the trial which occurred on February 18, 1947. He was arrested in Chicago, where he had gone soon after the difficulty. He had assumed the name of "Will Jones," and denied his identity when first arrested.
In the case of Outler v. State, 154 Ark. 598, 243 S.W. 851, the evidence showed that on the night of December 24, 1921, Outler struck Blackburn on the head with a gun and that Blackburn walked out of the house where the difficulty occurred, went home and died early the following morning. There was no medical testimony to show the cause of Blackburn's death. This court, holding that the testimony was sufficient to justify the jury's finding that the blow inflicted by Outler caused Blackburn's death, sustained a conviction of murder in the first degree. Chief Justice McCulloch, in that case, said:
"There is nothing, however, in the record to show that there was any other cause for the death which resulted so soon after the infliction of the blow, and...
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Sims v. State
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