Woolbright v. State

• Decision Date: 29 May 1916
• Docket Number: (No. 26.)
• Citation: 187 S.W. 166
• Parties: WOOLBRIGHT v. STATE.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

187 S.W. 166

WOOLBRIGHT v. STATE.

(No. 26.)

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

May 29, 1916.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cross County; W. J. Driver, Judge.

Henry Woolbright was convicted of assault with intent to kill, and he appeals. Affirmed.

This appeal is prosecuted by Henry Woolbright from a judgment for assault with intent to kill one B. F. Palmer. It appears from the testimony that bad feeling was engendered as the result of appellant's failure to win a lawsuit brought by him against Palmer, his tenant, in the justice court. He was greatly dissatisfied with the judgment, refused to pay the costs, and made threats in the presence of several persons that he would beat h____ out of Palmer the first time he caught him out. As the parties were leaving town in the afternoon of the day of the trial, appellant rode out a part of the way with W. R. Palmer, who stated, he said:

"`Well I fed him all the year, and now he has beat me out of it,' or something to that effect. Of course I can't remember everything, but during the conversation he said, `If he don't look sharp or ain't careful, I will beat h____ out of him.'"

Witness replied, "You have had trouble enough," and advised it would be better not to have any more. Wash and Leman, sons of appellant, and Sam Rogers, a boy about 18 years old, started out of town, riding in his wagon, overtook appellant, who got in with them and came upon B. F. Palmer, a man about 57 years of age, who in company with his wife was walking home from Vanndale, each carrying some packages of groceries. They drove up to Palmer, stopped the wagon, and all got out except appellant, and with clubs assaulted and beat him, knocking him down two or three times or more, and he remained unconscious from the beating for a week thereafter. Two gashes were cut in his head, to the skull, one three or more inches long and the other two. Mrs. Palmer testified that she and her husband left Vanndale about 4 o'clock with an armful of groceries, and were in a half mile of their home when overtaken by the assailants; that Wash came running with a club in his hand about four feet long, holloed and told Ben:

"`Hold on there, you g____ d____ s____ of a b____; we are going to settle with you now.' He knocked my husband down, then the wagon came up with Henry, Leman and Sam Rogers. Leman jumped out, picked up a club, and drawed back to hit Ben. He said to me, `Shut your g____ d____ mouth,' and throwed and hit Ben on the left shoulder, and Wash knocked him down again, and then turned to his father, Henry, who was driving the wagon, and asked him if that would do, and Henry replied, Them is baby licks, why don't you use your pistols?'"

After Ben knocked her husband down again, she asked him not to hit him any more, and he replied:

"`Now you have paid for what you eat,' and I said, `Yes, and more too.' Then he told Sam to hit him, and Henry said, `Come on; that will do.' They left laughing."

She identified the sticks that were used in beating her husband, who made no attempt to resist the assault, and said he never spoke from the time he was knocked down for more than two weeks thereafter. Neither appellant nor his son Wash testified, and Leman and Sam Rogers stated that when they came in the wagon to the turn in the road, they saw Wash talking to old man Palmer. Rogers said they were pointing their fingers at each other like they were quarreling, and just before they reached them with the wagon, Wash struck at Palmer, who had his knife out, with his fist, and Leman ran up and asked what he meant by that, and Palmer ran at Leman with the knife, and Wash knocked him down; that the knife struck and cut Leman's coat. Palmer said something else to him that witness could not hear, and Wash hit him again in the back of the head, struck him with a white oak stick witness thought. "Did not think the stick was as big as the one that was shown in court." He testified that Henry Woolbright was in the wagon, a short distance away, all the time the fight was going on, and said nothing that he heard to encourage the fight, and that he was as close to him as Mrs. Palmer. Said they went up to where the Palmers were and stopped the fight, and after...