Page v. State
| Decision Date | 30 November 1908 |
| Citation | 114 S.W. 248,88 Ark. 237 |
| Parties | PAGE v. STATE |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Garland Circuit Court; W. H. Evans, Judge; reversed.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
Wood & Henderson and A. J. Murphy, for appellant.
1. A hatchet is not necessarily a deadly weapon. 16 S.W. 257.
2. The State must prove the assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to inflict bodily injury, etc. Kirby's Digest § 1583.
3. The court allowed incompetent, improper and prejudicial testimony to go to the jury without even rebuke.
4. It was error to refuse the charge that the fact that defendant was a negro and the prosecuting witness a white man should have no effect in determining the guilt or innocence of defendant.
William F. Kirby, Attorney General; Daniel Taylor, Assistant, for appellee.
Suggest error in this: (1) incompetent and prejudicial testimony was admitted; (2) in refusing to instruct the jury that defendant being a negro and prosecuting witness a white man, should have no effect in determining guilt or innocence. 67 Ark 606; 16 Ill. 17.
The grand jury of Garland County indicted J. D. Page for an assault with a deadly weapon committed upon J. H. Scroggins. He was convicted, and has appealed. Page is a negro lawyer, and Scroggins is a white lawyer, and each is a notary public. They had offices in the same building, and for many years exchanged professional favors and services. Scroggins gave Page an affidavit which he had drawn, and which he desired signed and sworn to by Dr. Hornor, and requested Page to take the affidavit as a notary public. Scroggins thereafter asked him for it several times, and Page told him that he had lost or misplaced it, but would continue to look for it and render the requested service. Finally, on the 25th of September, 1907, Scroggins went into Page's office and again demanded the affidavit. Page again told him he had lost or misplaced it, but would continue to look for it. Scroggins told him he did not believe he had lost it, but that he thought he had stolen it; and unless he produced it he would have him before the court for it.
So far their stories run together, but from here they diverge. Scroggins said that Page ordered him out of his office, rose from his seat, and struck him on his head, and knocked him down and out into the hallway. Later he said that Page struck him with a hatchet. He said there were no persons present but himself and Page and a white man, whose name he did not know.
Page said that when Scroggins charged him with stealing the affidavit, and threatened prosecution, he told him that he wanted no trouble with him, and that he (Scroggins) was angry, and asked him to leave his office; that this seemed to make Scroggins still more angry, and he then rushed upon him and struck him, while he was seated, across the arm with a stick; that he arose from his chair and pushed Scroggins out of his office, and then Scroggins went and got a knife in another room, and came back breathing threats and oaths and denouncing Page, and he, Page, then picked up a hatchet without a handle, and pushed or shoved him out of the office into the hall with the hand holding the hatchet.
Ada Oliver and Gertrude Robinson each testified to being in Page's office when Scroggins came in, and that they witnessed the altercation and subsequent struggle; and each gave testimony substantially the same as that of Page. Other testimony corroborative of Page, and some contradictory of Scroggins, was introduced by the defendant, as well as evidence as to the defendant's good reputation for peace and quietude.
Scroggins was recalled, and...
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