Walker v. State

• Decision Date: 24 November 1958
• Docket Number: No. 4903,4903
• Parties: Thomas WALKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 823

317 S.W.2d 823

229 Ark. 685

Thomas WALKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. 4903.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Nov. 24, 1958.

Skillman & Fitzhugh, West Memphis, for appellant.

Bruce Bennett, Atty. Gen., and Thorp Thomas, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

HARRIS, Chief Justice.

Appellant, Thomas Walker, was charged by Information with the crime of First Degree Murder. The case went to trial and the jury returned a verdict of guilty, fixing Walker's punishment at death in the electric chair. The cause is here on appeal. Appellant contends that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction, and that a verdict of acquittal should have been directed by the court.

On March 9, 1957, around 9:30 p. m., a Saturday night, J. W. Orman, while on duty at the Cates Esso Station in West Memphis, was killed by a shotgun blast, fired by a negro man, during an attempted holdup. Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Smith witnessed the slaying. Mr. Smith was inside the station, using the telephone, and his wife was sitting in the car in front of the station. Both heard the intruder say, 'Stick them up', and Mr. Smith testified that the murderer had a double barrelled shotgun. The man was wearing an old felt hat, pulled down over his face. They stated that the murderer was a Negro, but were unable to identify appellant as the perpetrator of the crime. Following the report of the killing to officials, Arkansas State Trooper Bobby Sanders, with two other officers, went to the station, obtained a description of the suspect, and then drove south on Hulbert Road. After obtaining information from a young colored boy named Peals, who had observed a man running across a field, next hiding in a ditch when a car passed, and then running straight down the highway toward Hulbert, the officers drove on to Hulbert, and State Trooper Weaver walked down the railroad tracks toward Memphis. The officers heard a car start on a dead-end road at the edge of Hulbert, and watched it proceed to the Hulbert Road and turn south. Sanders testified that, judging from the sound of the starter, they considered the car to be an old model Buick or Pontiac, with a defective muffler, and observed that the left tail light was dimmer than the right. The next day, upon locating the car driven by appellant, it was found that such car was an old model Buick, with a defective muffler, and that the left tail light was dimmer than the right. Leroy Brown, a farm employee, employed by L. L. Riggan, testified that as he was leaving the Riggan barn, located at the intersection of Fletcher Lake Road and Dixon-Yates Road, around 12:30 or 1:00 a. m., on Sunday morning following the shooting, a man carrying a gas siphoning hose and a shotgun, caught up with him. They engaged in small talk, and parted at the intersection of Rock Road and Fletcher Lake Road. Brown testified that appellant 'looks pretty well' like the man he saw on the road, but would not positively identify him. John Tolbert Clemons, also an employee of Riggan, testified that about sunup, he got up to hook up a pair of mules, and observed an 'old model, sort of blue looking, might have been green, I took it to be blue, old model car setting side the road.' From the testimony:

'Q. Was anybody by the car? A. Looked like a gentleman off from the car, sorta stooped over, off from the car.

'Q. Which way was the car headed? A. The way the road run, south like.

'Q. Away from you? A. Yes, sir. Away from me.

'Q. How did you say the gentleman was? A. Looked like he was sorta bent over, away from the car, sorta stooped over.'

He testified that later, a colored man, driving the blue car, passed the barn and stopped at the home of William Bradford, another employee of Riggan. According to his testimony, the driver of the car walked back up toward the barn, and talked with Richie Taylor, another employee, about finding work. Clemons identified Walker as the stranger seeking work. Bradford testified that appellant stopped at his house and asked if he (Bradford) could let him have any gas or money. Walker then inquired about getting work, and was told that he would have to see 'my boss man.' He further testified that Walker parked his car where it could not be seen by people coming down the Hulbert Road. L. L. Riggan testified that Walker asked him for work. When told that none was available, appellant went across the field to the home of James Williams, likewise a tenant on the Riggan farm. Riggan, who had heard about the killing earlier that morning, drove to West Memphis, and notified officers of Walker's presence on his farm. In the meantime, according to witness Williams, Walker came to his home and asked Williams to fix him something to eat. Before the latter could finish preparing the meal, the officers arrived and took Walker into custody.

In another phase of the investigation, Lieutenant Charles Duncan of the West Memphis Police Department, testified that he searched the immediate vicinity around the station for clues, and found footprints ¹ leading into a field just west of the West Memphis road and the service station. The footprints led to an open field that borders Hulbert Road and went as far as Bowen Airfield (where Peals saw the man running). The tracks were followed to the Hulbert Road. About five hundred yards from the point where the tracks started, Duncan found an empty 12-gauge shotgun shell. This testimony was corroborated by Captain Romines of the West Memphis Police Department. ²

After taking Walker into custody at the home of Williams, appellant was transported to the City Hall in West Memphis by two of the officers, while the others stayed and searched for the shotgun. It was finally located, buried at the side of the road, lying in one of the gulleys, being covered lightly with dirt, and a burned piece of fence post, and near the place where Tolbert had noticed the parked blue car, and the man bending over. A search of the automobile revealed a piece of hose and a gas can in the back of the car. A shotgun shell was taken from appellant's possession ³ at the City Hall. As reflected by the evidence, Captain Romines and Lieutenant Duncan talked to appellant at the West Memphis City Hall around 10 o'clock on the morning of the arrest. His oral statement to them was to the following effect. After stating that his name was Thomas Morris, he changed it to Walker, and stated that he lived in Blytheville * * * had been in West Memphis a couple of days, after getting lost * * * he got lost between Osceola and Blytheville, taking a wrong turn * * * that the automobile he was driving, and the shotgun, ⁴ belonged to Lilly Daniels, ⁵ with whom he was living in Blytheville * * * he identified the shotgun as the one he brought from Blytheville * * * around 9 o'clock Saturday night, he was on a street where there were a lot of Negroes, and negro 'honky tonks' * * * he overheard one say there had been a killing * * * that somebody had been shot with a shotgun * * * he got scared, because he had the shotgun in the car, left, and drove away (to the area which constituted a part of the Riggan plantation), * * * that during the night he stayed around the car, walking up and down the turn row to keep warm * * * the next morning, he buried the double barrelled shotgun beside the road in the ditch, because he didn't want to get caught with it * * * that after burying the shotgun, he went to a colored boy's house on the plantation, parked his car, went down and asked a white man for a job * * * that he then went to another colored boy's house to try...