Murphy v. State, CR

• Decision Date: 29 October 1973
• Docket Number: No. CR,CR
• Citation: 500 S.W.2d 394,255 Ark. 398
• Parties: Earl Eugene MURPHY, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 73--104.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 394

500 S.W.2d 394

255 Ark. 398

Earl Eugene MURPHY, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 73--104.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Oct. 29, 1973.

James H. Pilkinton, Hope, for appellant.

Jim Guy Tucker, Atty. Gen. by James W. Atkins, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

BYRD, Justice.

In April, 1971, Earl Eugene Murphy, the appellant herein, entered a plea of guilty to a charge of robbery and was sentenced to 18 years. At the time of this sentence a charge of assault with intent to kill was pending against appellant. Following his incarceration for robbery, appellant's motion for a speedy trial on the assault with intent to kill charge was granted. Appellant was tried before a jury and found guilty of this charge which grew out of the appellant's shooting of the operator of the service station which he had robbed. The jury set appellant's punishment at 21 years, and the court entered judgment ordering this latter sentence to run consecutively with the previous one.

No appeal was taken from this conviction, but appellant petitioned for post conviction relief under our Rule One procedures and was granted a hearing. The trial court denied all relief on the Rule One.

For reversal appellant contends that he should be granted a trial on the robbery charge to which he pleaded guilty. Appellant bases this contention on the allegation that he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the hearing at which he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. Therefore, appellant argues, his plea was involuntary and should not have been accepted by the trial court.

Appellant testified at the Rule One hearing that he had concealed several capsules of 'RJS', a drug that 'lifts your spirits', on his body at the time of his arrest by taping them under his arm pit. He testified that he took the last one of these capsules the night before he went to court and changed his plea to guilty. He further testified that, as a result of the effects of this drug, at the time of entering his plea of guilty he did not know what he was doing and was not himself. Appellant in his brief argues that there is no showing that his plea of guilty was freely and understandingly entered, and it therefore must be taken to have been involuntarily made.

We find no merit in this contention. The record of the Rule One hearing indicates that appellant recalled that the judge before whom the plea was entered had asked him if he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and appellant's response was that he was not. Appellant was represented by court appointed counsel at the time of the plea. Counsel testified at the Rule One hearing that he had thoroughly discussed the nature and consequences of a plea of guilty with appellant prior to the entry of the plea, and that on the day of the plea appellant appeared normal and never indicated in any manner that he was under the influence of drugs.

It should be noted that there is nothing in the record which tends to impugn the voluntariness of the guilty plea other than appellant's own testimony at the Rule One hearing. See Parker v....