Lee v. State
| Citation | 229 Ark. 354,315 S.W.2d 916 |
| Decision Date | 01 July 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 4895,4895 |
| Parties | Leo LEE, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Arkansas |
Edward H. Herrod, North Little Rock, for appellant.
Bruce Bennett, Atty. Gen., and Thorp Thomas, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
On May 9, 1957 the appellant, Leo Lee, was charged with murder in the first degree in the killing of another Negro, William Harrison Smith Jr., on December 26, 1956. The information was amended on July 23, 1957, by additionally charging appellant with the commission of the homicide while in the attempt to perpetrate the crime of rape upon the person of Grace Helen Hays. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of first degree murder without recommending a life sentence and the trial court thereupon assessed the death penalty.
In his motion for new trial, the appellant first questions the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. He earnestly contends there is a lack of sufficient evidence to show either that he assaulted and killed Smith with malice aforethought, premeditation and deliberation or that he did so in the attempt to perpetrate a rape upon the Hays girl.
The evidence adduced by the State tended to establish the following facts. Grace Helen Hays, 19 years of age, resides with her parents at 1406 Ringo Street in Little Rock, Arkansas. In December, 1956 she was at home for the Christmas vacation while in her third year in college in Michigan. On the night of December 26, 1956, she had a date with William Harrison Smith Jr. with whom she had been keeping company for three or four years. They attended a movie with Grace's two younger sisters and a brother. After leaving the theater in Smith's two-door Chevrolet automobile, they took the children home and proceeded to drive around for a while and parked about the middle of the 2200 block on 24th Street between Howard and Park Streets.
Grace Helen Hays testified that she was learning to drive and that she and Smith exchanged positions in the front seat shortly after they parked. After they had been sitting there about five minutes and Smith had kissed her once, a large rock crashed through the right door glass of the car and she heard a voice shout: 'I am tired of this fucking here.' She saw the form of a man standing on the curb with his head above the car. As the car door opened Smith turned to his right and said: 'Mister, please don't hurt my girl,' and then said to Grace Helen, 'Don't get shook, I am shot.' Smith then got out of the car. The man she later identified as the appellant then walked in front of and to the left side of the car and said to Grace Helen: 'Come on out--I have been laying for you.' He seized her by the shoulder and forced her from the car. She fell to the ground and rolled under the car. He then said: 'Come on out, I am going to kill you anyway,' and she replied: 'Mister, I will do anything.' As he forced her into an alley with a pistol against her back, he asked her about her husband, her parents and where she lived. He then forced her to lie on the ground where he kissed her, placed his fingers in her privates after making her remove her undergarments. He then forced her to engage in an unnatural sexual act at gun point. After also placing his penis in her privates he released her with the warning that she not 'holler or call the police.' She drove the car directly to her home, reaching there about 9:45 p. m. and the police were notified and given a description of the appellant whom she had not known previously.
After young Smith left the car he staggered to the home of Nace Bradford, a short distance from the car and slumped on his front porch. Bradford called an ambulance and Smith was taken to a hospital where he died shortly thereafter as a result of a wound caused by a bullet which entered his left side and came to rest in his right hip bone.
On May 4, 1957, appellant was taken into custody by Little Rock police in connection with another shooting at Gillham Park. Two Little Rock detectives, D. M. Cox and O. A. Allen, testified that on May 7, 1957, appellant freely and voluntarily admitted he shot someone at the scene of the killing when he came upon a couple in a car on the night of December 26, 1956; that he read the next morning that it was Smith; that he did not want to visit the scene of the shooting again; and that a day never passed that he didn't think about the killing. He made the same statement the next day to the prosecuting attorney and other officers. Grace Helen was called home from college and was positive in her identification of the appellant as her assailant on the night in question and picked him out of a police line-up. She and others testified there was a street light and other lights shining in the vicinity of the killing on the night of December 26, 1956. She also stated the night was clear and that the lights in the vicinity enabled her to get a good look at the appellant while they were in the alley and that she particularly noticed his mustache and the outline of his hair.
Appellant had lived within a block of the scene of the killing for about 18 months prior to August, 1955, and had known Nace Bradford for many years. When officers visited the scene on the night of the killing, they found shattered glass where the car had been parked and a purse belonging to the prosecuting witness where she had told them she dropped it. In the excitement she was unable to distinguish between the crash of the window of the car door and the noise of a gun and did not know that a shot had been fired until the deceased told her he was shot.
Appellant testified he made the confession as the result of a beating administered to him by Officer Allen in a lonely graveyard west of Little Rock where he said the officer took him while they were on their way to State Police Headquarters on May 7th. This was denied by Allen and there were other facts and circumstances in contradiction of appellant's version of the route taken and injuries he claimed to have sustained as a result of a beating by the officer. Appellant and his wife also testified that he did not leave home on the night of the killing.
We must, of course, consider the testimony in the light most favorable to the State in determining its sufficiency to sustain the verdict. When this is done we hold the evidence sufficient to sustain the charge that there was either a wilfull, malicious, deliberate and premeditated killing of Smith by the...
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