Parker v. State

• Decision Date: 17 November 1975
• Docket Number: No. CR--75--97,CR--75--97
• Citation: 529 S.W.2d 860,258 Ark. 880
• Parties: Jimmy Ray PARKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 860

529 S.W.2d 860

258 Ark. 880

Jimmy Ray PARKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR--75--97.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Nov. 17, 1975.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 22, 1975.

Don Langston, Fort Smith, for appellant.

Jim Guy Tucker, Atty. Gen., by Walter W. Nixon, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

FOGLEMAN, Justice.

Jimmy Ray Parker was found guilty of robbery of Mrs. Walter Kliner in the taking of her purse containing her checkbook, food stamps, credit cards and money on December 17, 1974. He was charged jointly with Mikel Edward Parker and Terry Eugene Caldwell. He was also found to have been convicted of a felony on at least one previous occasion and sentenced for ten years.

Parker's motion to suppress any oral statements made by him to the police was denied. The 'purse snatching' was reported to the Fort Smith Police Department. The victim described a 'purse snatcher' to Patrolman Frank Hartman. The manager of a Ben Franklin store, who came to the aid of Mrs. Kliner when he heard her cries, told the officer that he pursued the person who had taken Mrs. Kliner's purse and saw him get into a green Dodge automobile bearing license No. BWZ 051. Mike Jordan, a Salvation Army representative, stated that there were two other persons in the vehicle. The police ascertained that this license was registered to a man named Caldwell in Charleston. Mrs. Kliner told the officer that her assailant took the purse, her personalized checkbook, her credit cards and identification, but he said that her bill-fold dropped out of the purse as he fled. The information about the vehicle was given to the State Police. When Officer Hartman was advised that State Police Trooper Acoach had seen the vehicle at the Suburban Liquor Store, he proceeded there, arriving at about the same time as Officer Sweeten. They found there a green Dodge Coronet bearing the license number reported to the police and saw Parker, his brother Mikel and Caldwell in Acoach's vehicle.

Acoach had known Caldwell. He saw the vehicle parked at the liquor store and stopped there and arrested Caldwell and Mikel Parker, whom he found sitting inside the Caldwell vehicle. After searching and handcuffing them he placed them in his police vehicle and went into the liquor store where he found the proprietor and Jimmy Parker. He asked Jimmy if he had been in the Caldwell vehicle. Upon receiving an affirmative reply, Acoach arrested, handcuffed, and searched Jimmy Parker. Appellant had not been advised of his constitutional rights by the officer. The answer given by appellant to Acoach was the only statement involved.

Appellant contends that this statement should have been suppressed, arguing that it was custodial interrogation because the investigation had focused on him. We do not agree. The information furnished the police was that three persons had been in the vehicle in which the 'purse snatcher' fled the scene. When the police officer found two persons in the vehicle which fit the description furnished him, it was natural and proper for him to inquire in the vicinity for a third person. When he went into the liquor store, he may well have intended to ask the proprietor what other persons he had seen in the vicinity. When appellant was found there the inquiry made of him was a natural part of the officer's investigation and there is no indication that appellant's freedom had been interfered with in any way before he answered.

Police inquiry is purely investigatory and proper until the suspect is restrained in some way. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 10 A.L.R.3d 974 (1965). The warnings mandated by Miranda are not required where the person interrogated has not been arrested or deprived of his freedom in any significant way. Patrick v. State, 245 Ark. 923, 436 S.W.2d 275; Johnson v. State, 252 Ark. 1113, 482 S.W.2d 600. The statement in this case readily falls within the class in which we held oral statements to police officers admissible in Stout v. State, 244 Ark. 676, 426 S.W.2d 800; Chenault v. State, 253 Ark. 144, 484 S.W.2d 887 and in Johnson v. State, supra. In Stout, we held that affirmative answers to the questions of a police officer who arrived soon after a shooting in response to a call by the accused as to the whereabouts of the weapon used and whether the gun produced was the one used were admissible, a spite of the fact that no warnings had been given, because the investigation had not reached the accusatory state, even though the accused was arrested immediately after answering the questions. In Johnson, a police detective, who had gone to a hospital to see the victim of a 'shoot-out' and who interrogated the accused there in making his investigation of a reported gunshot wound for which the accused was receiving treatment, was permitted to testify that, in response to his questions, the accused identified himself by an incorrect name and gave an account of his activities that proved to be untrue, even though one of the purposes of the interrogation was to see whether or not he was involved in the 'shoot-out.' No warnings were given the accused. We said that the officer would have been derelict in his duty if he had not asked the questions he did. In Chenault, the police officers found the body of a murder victim in the front room of his home and the accused, his wife, standing by the kitchen wall with a gun in her hand. When an officer asked her for the gun she handed it over, saying that she had shot the victim. When asked who the victim was, she replied that he was her husband. Even after this, and without any warnings having been given, the officer asked her what happened and she responded, 'I shot him. I killed him.' Only after this answer was she warned not to say any more. These utterances, without others were held admissible as spontaneous utterances.

The inquiry here was quite similar to that in Dickson v. State, 254 Ark. 250, 492 S.W.2d 895, where we found the answers given admissible. We find no error in the admission of appellant's answer to the inquiry made by the police officer.

Appellant next contends that his motion for directed verdict should have been granted because the statement he made to Officer Acoach should have been suppressed and because there was no identification testimony to support the verdict. This contention actually turns upon the disposition of appellant's first argument and must fall with it.

Another of appellant's points for reversal is his contention that, since he was charged as a principal, the circuit judge erred in giving a jury instruction defining accessories and advising that an accessory could be punished as a principal. The instruction is a proper statement of the law and was properly given. Appellant argues that the abolishment of the distinction between...