Wray v. State

• Decision Date: 22 December 1924
• Docket Number: 62
• Citation: 266 S.W. 939,167 Ark. 54
• Parties: WRAY v. STATE
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

266 S.W. 939

167 Ark. 54

WRAY v. STATE

No. 62

Supreme Court of Arkansas

December 22, 1924

Appeal from Calhoun Circuit Court; L. S. Britt, Judge; reversed.

Judgment reversed, and cause remanded.

J. S McKnight, for appellant.

J. S Utley, Attorney General, and Darden Moose, Assistant, for appellee.

OPINION

MCCULLOCH, C. J.

Appellant was convicted of the crime of grand larceny, alleged to have been committed by stealing an automobile (a Ford touring car) the property of H. S. Speer. The owner of the car lived at Tinsman, in Calhoun County, and the car in question was stolen from his garage in Tinsman on the night of July 29-30, 1923. Speer testified that he missed his car from the garage the next morning, and that he followed the track from the garage to the town of Hampton, the county seat of Calhoun County, and thence to a ferry known as the Lee Ferry, on the Ouachita River near Calion. He testified that he got to the ferry about eleven o'clock on the morning after the car was stolen, and that he there gave to the ferryman a description of the two men he had seen the afternoon or evening before, whom he suspected of being guilty of the theft. He testified that he saw no other track but that of his car in the bottom near the ferry. He also described appellant and another man with him, whom he said he saw in Tinsman the evening before the car was stolen. He identified appellant as one of the men he saw in Tinsman, and described the other man with him as being about thirty years of age, with "kind of red hair."

Bud Lee, a witness introduced by the State, testified that he operated a ferry at Calion, and that, about daylight, or a little before daylight, on the morning of July 30, appellant and another man came to his ferry to be put across. He said that he identified appellant as being one of the men, and testified that the other man was about eighteen years old, and was much smaller in size than appellant. He testified that appellant crossed the ferry on the Sunday before in a car, and was accompanied by a woman. He also testified that the man he put across the river had on khaki pants, a yellow hat and a yellow shirt, and that the two men were traveling in a Ford car without a license. The witness did not attempt to state any marks of identification about the car, but, on the contrary, stated that he could not tell anything about the car except that it was a Ford car and had no license tag on it.

Several other witnesses identified appellant as being seen at Tinsman on the afternoon or evening before the night during which the car was stolen. These witnesses identified appellant, but differed somewhat in their descriptions of the young man or boy who accompanied him. Two of them, however, stated that appellant had on khaki pants, but that his hat and coat were white instead of yellow, as stated by witness Lee.

The car was found a few days after it was stolen, between Calion and Smackover--about three-quarters of a mile from Smackover. Appellant was arrested at Camden.

Appellant testified in his own behalf, and stated that he lived at Smackover, where he had been following different occupations and employments. He testified that he was in Smackover on the night of July 29, and introduced witnesses to prove that he was there that night and was engaged in a game of poker. Another witness, Hollingsworth by name, was introduced by appellant, and he testified that he lived in Hampton, and that the Speer car was stolen by a man he had known by the name of "Two Gun Blondie," who was now in the penitentiary for holding up an oil camp. Hollingsworth testified that he saw "Two Gun Blondie" and another man by the...