Surridge v. State

• Decision Date: 09 May 1983
• Docket Number: No. CR,CR
• Citation: 650 S.W.2d 561,279 Ark. 183
• Parties: James SURRIDGE, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 82-105.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 561

650 S.W.2d 561

279 Ark. 183

James SURRIDGE, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 82-105.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

May 9, 1983.

Rehearing Denied June 13, 1983.

Harkey, Walmsley, Belew & Blankenship by John M. Belew, Batesville, for appellant.

Steve Clark, Atty. Gen. by William C. Mann, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

GEORGE ROSE SMITH, Justice.

Russell Ratliff, 61, had been a resident of Pine Bluff for some time before he disappeared on December 4, 1980. More than a month later his badly decomposed body was found by police officers on the Surridge property in Desha County, over 50 miles from Pine Bluff. James Surridge, the appellant, was charged with capital murder in the course of robbery. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to a 50-year term, to run concurrently with a commuted life sentence for murder from which he was on parole at the time of Ratliff's death. For reversal it is argued that the State's evidence was insufficient to present a jury question and that certain hospital records and x-rays should not have been considered by the medical examiner in identifying Ratliff's body.

First, the sufficiency of the evidence. The State's proof was entirely circumstantial in that there was no eyewitness testimony about the shooting. The jury was correctly instructed that circumstantial evidence must be consistent with the defendant's guilt and inconsistent with any other reasonable conclusion. AMCI 106. On appeal, however, the judgment must be affirmed if the verdict is supported by substantial evidence. "Substantial evidence is that which is more than a scintilla and must do more than create a suspicion of the existence of the fact to be established; it is such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion." Phillips v. State, 271 Ark. 96, 607 S.W.2d 664 (1980). Evidence is not substantial if it leaves the fact finders "only to speculation and conjecture in choosing between two equally reasonable conclusions, and merely gives rise to a suspicion." Smith v. State, 264 Ark. 874, 575 S.W.2d 677 (1979).

There is no possible doubt about Ratliff's having been murdered. There is no possible doubt that some person committed the murder by shooting Ratliff twice in the back of his head. The issue is simple: Was the evidence so evenly balanced that the jury had to resort to guesswork in finding that the crime was committed by Surridge rather than by someone else? No. We have no doubts about the sufficiency of the proof. In fact, we think the evidence clearly establishes Surridge's guilt to the exclusion of any other reasonable conclusion.

For several months before Ratliff's disappearance on December 4, he and Surridge, age 74, both living alone, had lived across the hall from each other in an 8-unit apartment house in Pine Bluff. During that fall Surridge made several inquiries about obtaining a gun, for protection and squirrel hunting. Some weeks before Ratliff's disappearance Surridge acquired a rifle with a detachable scope (telescopic sight). He showed the rifle to three persons who testified at the trial: Russell Ratliff's brother; the owner of the apartments; and the greatgrandson of Mrs. Jewell Cook, a lady whom Surridge was seeing about every day.

In October, Russell Ratliff received $1,619 in a personal injury settlement. For a time he left the money with his lawyers for safekeeping, but in November he obtained the money from them and deposited the check in a bank.

Russell Ratliff, who had a drinking problem, called his brother, W.E., apparently in late November, and asked him to get a lawyer to defend Russell on a public drunkenness charge. W.E. went to Russell's apartment on December 1 and had to wait a few minutes until Surridge and Russell drove up in Surridge's pickup truck, saying they had been to the bank. In Surridge's presence Russell took two rolls of bills from his pockets and from one of the rolls handed W.E. two twenties and a ten to pay the lawyer's $50 fee.

On December 4, the day of Russell's disappearance, he called W.E. early in the morning and asked W.E. to take him to see a doctor. W.E. was unable to do so. Russell said he would get Surridge to take him. Russell did not have a car, and Surridge had often furnished him transportation. The State proved that Russell did go to the doctor that morning and was given three prescriptions, which he had filled at a pharmacy at about 11:00 a.m. There is no proof that he was ever seen alive again.

A day or two later W.E. went to Russell's apartment, but he was not there. W.E. visited with Surridge, who said that on Thursday (December 4) he had taken Russell to a doctor's office, a drugstore, and a grocery, where Russell had bought beer. Surridge said that when they got back to the apartment house there were two black men waiting in a gray pickup truck. Ratliff joined the two men, after telling Surridge that one of them had worked for him in the past.

W.E. continued to worry about Russell's absence and came to see Surridge daily until Surridge began to dodge him. On December 9, W.E. reported to the police that Russell was missing and gave them the information Surridge had supplied. A week or so later the police found Surridge, at Mrs. Cook's house. He talked freely, telling the police the same story he had told W.E. and adding that after dropping Ratliff near the apartment house he had himself gone to the Senior Citizens Center for lunch.

Eventually Surridge became the principal suspect. Among the incriminating facts discovered by the police and later disclosed to the jury were three in particular. One, Surridge's tale about Ratliff's having recognized one of the two black men was quite improbable. Ratliff himself had been unemployed for more than ten years, so it was hardly likely that his former employee, after that length of time, would turn up to renew...