House v. State
| Decision Date | 18 May 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 4943,4943 |
| Citation | 230 Ark. 622,324 S.W.2d 112 |
| Parties | J. T. HOUSE, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
E. L. Schieffler, West Helena, and Charles B. Roscopf, Helena, for appellant.
Bruce Bennett, Atty. Gen., by Bill J. Davis, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to death. For a reversal he question the sufficiency of the evidence and a number of the trial court's rulings.
House, a man of twenty-four, and the decedent, Ernestine Coley, a girl of nineteen, were residents of Phillips county. On the afternoon of July 26, 1958, the two met on the street in the community of Oneida, and the girl solicited a ride into Helena, where one of her relatives was in a hospital. While House was waiting for the girl to change her clothes he made the statement to a friend that he was going to try to have intercourse with her.
On the way to Helena House turned down a side road and stopped the car. In his written confession House said that he and the girl began fighting when she resisted his advances; on the witness stand he attributed the fight to a dispute over a money matter. In both narratives he says that in repelling the girl's attack upon him with a soda pop bottle he picked up a lug wrench and struck her a single blow on the head. In his confession House stated that he didn't know whether the girl was dead, but he rolled her into a water-filled ditch and drove away. In his testimony he says that she fell into the ditch and appeared to be dead when he left the spot.
Within a short time House changed his mind, returned to the scene, and removed the girl from the ditch. According to his confession he still did not know whether she was dead, but he drove to Long Lake, tied a heavy weight to his victim's feet, and threw the body off a bridge. His testimony is substantially to the same effect, except that he says that upon removing the girl from the ditch he could not feel any pulse, 'and I figured she was dead, and I got scared and I couldn't think of nothing to do but try to get rid of her.' Upon the discovery next day of Ernestine's body in the lake House was immediately arrested and made a complete confession of his guilt.
In challenging the sufficiency of the State's evidence counsel earnestly insist that the proof fails to establish a deliberate, premeditated intention to take life. Ark.Stats.1947 § 41-2205; Gulley v. State, 201 Ark. 744, 146 S.W.2d 706. But deliberation and premeditation may be inferred from the circumstances of the case, Weldon v. State, 168 Ark. 534, 270 S.W. 968, and here the evidence was amply sufficient to support the jury's conclusion that the necessary criminal intent existed.
The trampled condition of the grass near the ditch indicated that an extensive struggle had taken place. One of Ernestine's shoes was found there, and a torn portion of her petticoat was discovered 'some distance' from the shoe. The doctor who examined the body was unable to say whether death was caused by the blow, which did not fracture the skull, or by drowning, there having been water in the lungs. The jury may well have concluded either that the decedent was killed in the course of a protracted fight or that she was thrown into the ditch or lake and left to drown. There is substantial evidence to sustain either view; so the issue of deliberation and premeditation is settled by the jury's verdict.
Several of the appellant's arguments pertain to the admissibility of the written confession. One contention is that the court erred in permitting the introduction of this document without first conducting a preliminary hearing in chambers to determine whether the confession was voluntary. We have often said that it is the better practice for the court to conduct a preliminary hearing in the absence of the jury, Austin v. State, 193 Ark. 833, 103 S.W.2d 56; Lee v. State, Ark., 315 S.W.2d 916; but the reason for the rule is to avoid the possibility of the jury's being prejudiced if the court rules the confession inadmissible, and hence the accused has no basis for complaint if the confession is actually admitted in evidence. Greenwood v. State, 107 Ark. 568, 156 S.W. 427; Bullen v. State, 156 Ark. 148, 245 S.W. 493. The fact that the confession...
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