Beck v. State

676 S.W.2d 740, 12 Ark. App. 341, 1984 Ark. App. LEXIS 1797
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedOctober 10, 1984
DocketCA CR 84-156
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 676 S.W.2d 740 (Beck v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beck v. State, 676 S.W.2d 740, 12 Ark. App. 341, 1984 Ark. App. LEXIS 1797 (Ark. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinions

Tom Glaze, Judge.

This appeal is from appellant’s conviction of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and criminal use of a prohibited weapon, for which he was sentenced to twenty years and five years respectively, to run concurrently. Appellant raises nine points for reversal.

The facts leading to appellant’s arrest are undisputed. On April 25, 1982, the appellant was a passenger in a car stopped by Ashdown police officer, Greg Fox, and Sevier County deputy, John Sullivan, who was visiting Fox and was riding patrol with him. Sullivan was not in uniform, but he was armed. Fox stopped the car after he observed it weaving within its lane. While Fox was running a check on the license of Jimmy Doss, the driver, Sullivan asked Doss if he could look in the trunk. Doss gave him permission to open the trunk, and Sullivan found amj removed an ice chest of beer. Fox testified that when the beer was found, he decided to take all four occupants of the car to the station for a breathalyzer test. Fox saw and removed a Crown Royal sack from the floor of the car and found inside it three boxes of bullets. When he questioned the appellant about the gun that went with the bullets, appellant told Fox it was under a jacket on the backseat. While Fox was retrieving that gun, Sullivan shouted to alert Fox that appellant had a pistol in his hand. When appellant failed to drop the gun after Fox’s second or third command to do so, Sullivan grabbed the gun from his hand. The officers then removed guns from the handbags of the two female passengers and transported all four people to the Ashdown jail.

While Sullivan was locking Doss’s car before leaving it on the roadside, he saw and opened a leather pistol case and found inside a white powdery substance that was later identified as methamphetamine. The car was taken to the City Barn where a search was conducted and various other items found, including hypodermic needles, two weight scales, and two sifters.

The appellant filed pretrial motions to suppress items seized and a motion in limine requesting that the State not be allowed to question appellant at trial about prior drug-related convictions. Items removed from the car when it was searched at the Car Barn were suppressed, but the trial court denied the motion dealing with the methamphetamine. In addition, the court ruled that cross-examination on appellant’s prior convictions would be permitted.

We will discuss the appellant’s nine points for reversal in the order he presented them. Appellant first contends that the trial court erred in ruling on his motion in limine that evidence of his prior drug-related convictions would be permitted on cross-examination for impeachment purposes. Appellant contends that the potential prejudice greatly outweighed any probative value. The appellant further contends that the court’s ruling forced him to give up his right to testify. This same argument was made by defendants in two cases that this Court decided on the same day, Bell v. State, 6 Ark. App. 388, 644 S.W.2d 601 (1982), and Williams v. State, 6 Ark. App. 410, 644 S.W.2d 608 (1982). In both cases, we found that the trial courts had not abused their discretion in ruling that the State would be permitted to impeach the defendant’s testimonies under Rule 609 of the Arkansas Uniform Rules of Evidence. In both, we relied upon Smith v. State, 277 Ark. 64, 639 S.W.2d 348 (1982), in which the Supreme Court upheld denial of the defendant’s motion in limine and the introduction of evidence of prior convictions under Rule 609. In Smith, the Supreme Court noted that the question of admissibility under Rule 609 must be decided on a case-by-case basis. Id. at 69, 639 S.W.2d 350; see also Washington v. State, 6 Ark. App. 85, 638 S.W.2d 690 (1982). As in Bell and Williams, in the instant case, we do not find that the trial court abused its discretion in denying appellant’s motion in limine or that the court’s ruling deprived him of his right to testify.

Appellant’s second point for reversal is that the court erred in not suppressing any evidence that resulted from Deputy Sullivan’s participation in the search and arrest. The incidents occurred in Ashdown, which is in Little River County. Sullivan is a deputy in Sevier County and was riding with Officer Fox only because the two are friends and former coworkers. Because Sullivan was outside his jurisdiction as a deputy, according to appellant, he had no authority to search the vehicle to find the chest of beer in the trunk. It was finding the beer that led Fox to arrest appellant and the others, according to Fox’s testimony. Appellant claims the original search was void and that all evidence seized as a result of that search should have been suppressed. A similar objection was urged in Logan v. State, 264 Ark. 920, 576 S.W.2d 203 (1979). Logan was arrested in St. Francis County by a Crittenden County deputy sheriff, J.M. Davis, who was accompanied by a St. Francis County deputy sheriff, Sam Hughes. Logan argued on appeal that the arrest made by Davis was illegal and, as a consequence, all items seized and his confession were inadmissible as fruits of the illegal arreest. The Supreme Court found the arrest to be legal because Davis was accompanied by Hughes who “was also present in his capacity as a deputy sheriff and participated in making the arrest.” Id. at 923, 576 S.W.2d at 205. We find the facts in the instant case even stronger than the facts in Logan, because here, Fox undisputedly initiated the stop and made the arrest in his own county. Sullivan merely assisted him.

Appellant’s third point for reversal is that the trial court erred in not suppressing evidence seized as a result of an illegal arrest. In our examination of the abstract, we fail to find any obj ection to evidence based upon an illegal arrest. It is well settled that we do not consider issues or objections raised for the first time on appeal. Brown v. State, 5 Ark. App. 181, 636 S.W.2d 286 (1982).

Appellant’s fourth point for reversal is that the trial court erred in not suppressing appellant’s statement because he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs to the extent that his statement was not voluntarily and knowingly made. The car in which appellant was a passenger was stopped at about 11:30 P.M., and he was questioned and a statement taken about twelve hours later. Officer Fox testified that he could not smell alcohol on appellánt, but that appellant “was rocking from heel to toe under the influence” when the car was stopped. Fox said that his speech was slurred. Deputy James Crouse, who was on duty at the sheriff’s office the night Beck was brought in, testified that on that night, the appellant “just stood there,” but that the next day appellant was upset and was beating on a door in the sheriff’s office. Crouse said, “He appeared to be something . . . people had told me . . . that they thought he was coming down off some type of high or something.

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Bluebook (online)
676 S.W.2d 740, 12 Ark. App. 341, 1984 Ark. App. LEXIS 1797, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beck-v-state-arkctapp-1984.