Walker v. State
| Decision Date | 03 June 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 5350,5350 |
| Citation | 244 Ark. 1150,429 S.W.2d 121 |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
| Parties | Roy WALKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. |
Oliver L. Adams, Rogers, for appellant.
Joe Purcell, Atty. Gen., Don Langston, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.
Roy Walker was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to imprisonment for three years. According to the State's proof, Walker was driving a truck on a highway in or near Eureka Springs at such a high speed that he lost control of the vehicle and struck and killed Otto Miller, a pedestrian. The information charged that Walker was intoxicated at the time. For reversal Walker contends that the court erred in allowing the prosecution to introduce evidence of a blood test that showed Walker to have been intoxicated.
After the accident Walker, who was injured, was taken by someone to a hospital in Eureka Springs, where he was treated as an outpatient. There Richard Stallman, a laboratory technician, took a sample of Walker's blood without having asked his permission and sent it to a pathologist in Fayetteville for analysis. The pathologist testified that the sample contained .140 percent of alcohol when taken and that the percentage would probably have been higher an hour earlier, when the accident occurred.
The appellant, citing Schmerber v. State of California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966), and other cases, insists that the taking of the blood sample amounted to such an unreasonable search and seizure as to be prohibited by the federal and state constitutions. It does not appear, however, that Stallman acted either at the direction of the police or by prearrangement with them. The search-and-seizure clauses are restraints upon the government and its agents, not upon private individuals. People v. Potter, 240 Cal.App.2d 621, 49 Cal.Rptr. 892 (1966); State v. Brown, Mo., 391 S.W.2d 903 (1965); State v. Olsen, Or., 317 P.2d 938 (1957). Hence the proof does not establish a denial of Walker's constitutional rights.
Complaint is also made of the court's refusal to give an instruction informing the jury that the decedent was under a duty to keep a proper lookout. We doubt the applicability of such a civil standard to a criminal case, but in any event the point was not included in the motion for a new trial and so is not available to the appellant in this court. Dokes v. State, 241 Ark. 720, 409...
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Turner v. State
...prearrangement with, any police officer, the taking of the sample did not constitute an unreasonable search and seizure. Walker v. State, 244 Ark. 1150, 429 S.W.2d 121. Thus, the matter of appellant's implied consent is wholly immaterial, and the admissibility of the evidence of the testing......
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Gardner v. State, CR
...there is absolutely no evidence that this action was done with the connivance of or at the behest of the police. Cf. Walker v. State, 244 Ark. 1150, 429 S.W.2d 121 (1968) (the search and seizure clauses are restraints upon the government and its agents, not upon private While Gardner may ha......
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Gruzen v. State
...not applicable to action by private citizens, even when they inform state officers of matters coming to their knowledge. Walker v. State, 244 Ark. 1150, 429 S.W.2d 121; United States v. Burton, 475 F.2d 469 (8 Cir. Appellant seeks to invoke the "fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine," citing......
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Bruce v. State, CR 06-496.
...IV. "The search and seizure clauses are restraints upon the government and its agents, not upon private individuals." Walker v. State, 244 Ark 1150, 429 S.W.2d 121 (1968). The general corollary to this proposition is that the exclusionary rule is not intended as a restraint upon the acts of......