Pointer v. State, 5462
| Decision Date | 11 May 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 5462,5462 |
| Citation | 248 Ark. 710,454 S.W.2d 91 |
| Parties | John H. POINTER, Jr., Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Bart G. Mullis, Pine Bluff, for appellant.
Joe Purcell, Atty. Gen., Mike Wilson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.
John H. Pointer, Jr., was appointed City Collector of Pine Bluff and took office on June 15, 1965. On July 9, 1969, he was tried before a jury and convicted of embezzlement in the Jefferson County Circuit Court. He was sentenced to five years in the Arkansas Penitentiary and on appeal to this court he relies on the following points for reversal:
'The trial court erred in refusing to allow the defense the right to audit or examine the books and records of the City Collector's office for a period of time prior to the time that the defendant took office.
The trial court erred when it allowed the plaintiff to introduce testimony concerning funds that were allegedly missing in the year 1965.
The trial court erred when it failed and refused to strike and quash the panel of jurors and to order preparation of a new jury list, fairly and properly chosen.
The court erred when it allowed the plaintiff to bolster its case in chief by use of rebuttal.
The court erred when it allowed a layman to identify the defendant's handwriting.'
The appellant does not question the sufficiency of the evidence so we shall not elaborate thereon. The proof was directed to the embezzlement of $32,473 in city funds, through the simple but crude process of holding in reserve an ample supply of checks sent to the city in payment of accounts, such as occupation tax, and then depositing to the city's bank account sufficient amounts in checks to equal the amounts of cash embezzled. Two sets of receipt books were used in an effort to allay, or at least delay, suspicion.
In treating the points raised by the appellant in the order presented, we find no merit in any of them. The appellant's first point is without merit because the appellant's rights were not prejudiced by the trial court's ruling. The books and records of the city collector's office are public records, and these records were at all times available to the appellant by virtue of the Freedom of Information Act, Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 12--2801 to 12--2807 (Repl.1968).
The appellant's second point is without merit because the testimony concerning funds that were allegedly missing during the year 1965 pertained to the latter part of 1965. The trial court correctly ruled that any proof of appellant's embezzlement in the last three years prior to the indictment on July 10, 1968, was admissible under the three year statute of limitations, Ark.Stat.Ann. § 43--1602 (Repl.1964).
The appellant's third point is also without merit. We have hertofore held without merit. We have heretofore held to have a jury of his choice from the panel selected by the jury commissioners, Stout v. State, (Ark., January 12, 1970), 448 S.W.2d 636. We now hold that an accused in Arkansas has never been entitled to have the jury commissioners select jurors in such manner as to assure the accused of a jury from his own ethnic group or from his own occupation. We again state, as we did in Stout, that an accused only has the right to a competent, fair and impartial jury. When the jury was selected for appellant's trial in the case at bar, the jury commission system was the method employed for selecting juries in Arkansas, and we refuse to hold, as the appellant seems to urge, that the jury selection statutes, Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 39--201 to 39--231 (Repl.1962), are ipso facto unconstitutional in preventing a representative cross section of the community from being placed on the jury rolls, and actually causing jurors to be placed on the jury rolls who reflect the personalities of the jury commissioners.
The Alabama jury selection statute is similar to the Arkansas statutes under attack here, and in Carter v. Jury Comm'n of Greene County, 396 U.S. 320, 90 S.Ct. 518, 24 L.Ed.2d 549, the constitutionality of the jury commission system for selecting juries was upheld even though the jury rolls reflected the personalities of the jury commissioners. In Car...
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Turner v. State
...has a right to have jurors selected in a manner to assure him of a jury from his own ethnic group or occupation. Pointer v. State, 248 Ark. 710, 454 S.W.2d 91. When we view the evidence presented here in the light of Ark.Stat.Ann. § 39--201 et seq. (Supp.1973), the instructions given the ju......
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Glover v. State, 5479
...venireman, Laws, to be qualified to serve as a juror.' As we said in Stout v. State, (1970), 448 S.W.2d 636, and later in Pointer v. State, (1970), 454 S.W.2d 91, an accused does not have the right to have a jury of his choice from the panel selected, but an accused only has the right to a ......
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Birchett v. State
...have been properly introduced in the state's case in chief, Kellensworth v. State, 275 Ark. 252, 631 S.W.2d 1 (1982); Pointer v. State, 248 Ark. 710, 454 S.W.2d 91 (1970); Bobo v. State, 179 Ark. 207, 14 S.W.2d 1115 (1929); Adams v. State, 173 Ark. 713, 293 S.W. 19 (1927), we have an additi......
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Mosby v. State, 5788
...of the county and he did not meet that burden. Avery v. Georgia, 345 U.S. 559, 73 S.Ct. 891, 97 L.Ed. 1244 (1953). See Pointer v. State, 248 Ark. 710, 454 S.W.2d 91 (1970). Point III. Four murder trials constitute cruel and unusual punishment. We are cited no authorities for that propositio......