Davis v. State

246 S.W.3d 433, 368 Ark. 351, 2007 Ark. LEXIS 12
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJanuary 4, 2007
DocketCR 06-766
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 246 S.W.3d 433 (Davis v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. State, 246 S.W.3d 433, 368 Ark. 351, 2007 Ark. LEXIS 12 (Ark. 2007).

Opinion

Tom Glaze, Justice.

We take this case on review from the court of appeals. The events that led to this review arose from Calvin Davis having been charged in December 2002 with theft by receiving in case number CR 02-4246. On August 25, 2003, Davis entered a negotiated plea of guilty to the theft-by-receiving charge and was sentenced to three years’ probation, required to pay $300 fine and court costs, required to perform forty hours of community service, and required to submit a DNA sample. This probationary sentence was conditioned upon Davis’s compliance with written rules of conduct.

Later, on July 6, 2005, the State filed an amended petition for probation revocation in case number CR 02-4246, wherein it alleged Davis had violated the terms of his probation by committing the new criminal offenses of (1) attempt to commit residential burglary, (2) kidnapping, and (3) fleeing on October 28, 2004. The State also alleged that Davis had failed to report and failed to pay supervision fees.

The new criminal charges were filed in case number CR 04-4879 on December 1, 2004, and after the State amended its three-count information against Davis, 1 the case proceeded to a jury trial on July 26, 2005. At the conclusion of the jury trial, the jury found Davis guilty of attempted residential burglary, kidnapping, and fleeing.

In his appeal, Davis challenges the felony kidnapping and attempted residential burglary convictions and argues the State failed to prove the elements of these two felony convictions. The State alleged, in case number CR 04-4879, that, on October 28, 2004, Davis committed a felony kidnapping offense against a woman named Ashley Jones. Also, in that same case, the State charged that, on October 28, 2004, Davis committed the felony crime of attempted residential burglary against a woman named Martina Kindig, who was in her apartment when Davis tried to gain entrance. Davis appealed these felony convictions, and his counsel also included a “no merit” argument regarding the revocation of his probation. Davis responded to his lawyer’s “no merit” argument by filing a one-page pro se brief.

We first turn to Davis’s argument that the State’s evidence is insufficient to support the kidnapping conviction. The crime of kidnapping is defined in Ark. Code Ann. § 5-ll-102(a)(4) & (5) (Repl. 1997), which, in relevant part, provides as follows:

(a) A person commits the offense of kidnapping if, without consent, he restrains another person so as to interfere substantially with his liberty with the purpose of:
(4) Inflicting physical injury upon him, . . . ; or
(5) Terrorizing him or another person. . . .

The relevant facts of the case pertaining to this kidnapping issue are as follows. On October 27, 2004, Ashley Jones had been “hanging out” with friends at Kevin Lunsford’s apartment on Green Mountain Drive in Little Rock. In the early morning hours of October 28, 2004, Jones said that she stepped outside of Lunsford’s apartment to smoke when she was approached by Davis. She denied knowing him. Jones claimed Davis, without her consent, picked her up around her waist and moved quickly around the corner of the apartment building. Lunsford heard Jones’s scream, and he went outside to see what was going on. He saw Davis carryingjones around the apartment building, andjones was screaming. Lunsford testified that Davis had one hand over Jones’s mouth, and he saw Jones hitting Davis as she screamed and kicked him. When asked what caused Davis to stop, Jones said that Lunsford was a couple of minutes behind her and he yelled “stop,” and Davis just dropped her and “took off running.”

After the State concluded its case, Davis moved for directed verdict, arguing that the State failed to introduce substantial evidence that Davis restrained Jones for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a felony, or inflicting physical injury on her, or engaging in sexual intercourse with her, or terrorizing her. 2 The circuit court denied Davis’s motions. The circuit court was correct.

The applicable law in this case is well settled, and Davis recognizes it in arguing his case. The mistake in his analysis occurs when he applies the law to the facts of this case. In Green v. State, 313 Ark. 87, 852 S.W.2d 110 (1993), this court held that kidnapping or attempted kidnapping requires that the victim’s liberty be restrained without consent, and restraint without consent is defined as including restraint by physical force. The Green court held that substantial interference with another person’s liberty does not require that the interference be for a substantial period of time. Id. The court further concluded that the purpose may be inferred from circumstantial evidence, and intent to commit a crime may also be inferred from the circumstances. Id; see also Jackson v. State, 290 Ark. 160, 717 S.W.2d 801 (1986).

Here, Davis contends the State failed to prove he made any threatening statements to Jones when he restrained her. He further argues there was no proof that he had in his possession any weapon, tool, or anything else that would have permitted the jury to infer he had the purpose to commit any felony, or to inflict physical injury on Jones, or to have sexual intercourse with her, or to terrorize her or any other person. Finally, Davis also argues that Jones never testified that she was terrorized while Davis restrained her. We see no merit in Davis’s rendition of the facts in his effort to overturn the circuit court’s denial of his directed-verdict motions.

We easily conclude that, when the evidence is taken in the light most favorable to the State, the obvious conclusion for the jury to draw was that Davis’s purpose of his restraint of Jones was for inflicting physical injury on her or terrorizing her. As already discussed above, when Davis approached Jones outside of Lunsford’s apartment, Jones testified that Davis, a man she did not know, picked her up by the waist and ran around the corner of the apartment building, as she was screaming and kicking. When Lunsford came out of his apartment to determine what was happening, he saw Davis running from the apartment. Lunsford stated that Davis had one hand over Jones’s mouth, and Lunsford yelled for Davis to stop, which Davis did, although he kept running afterward. Lunsford testified that he thought Davis was carrying her behind the dumpster, and he “didn’t think . . . anything good was going to happen out of that.” Davis was later located by the police, lying under patio furniture in a nearby apartment complex. The police said that Davis advised that he was “high on speed and didn’t know what was going on.” At that point, officers told him he was under arrest for fleeing. Although Davis now claims that he never made a threatening statement to Jones, the officer testified that Jones was clearly upset, nervous and crying as a result of her restraint. In sum, we hold the State offered substantial circumstantial evidence that would have enabled the jury to reasonably infer that Davis restrained Jones for the purpose of physically injuring or terrorizing her.

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Related

Turner v. State
538 S.W.3d 227 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2018)
Sherman v. State
2009 Ark. 275 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2009)
Mobley v. Dooley
249 S.W.3d 808 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2007)

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Bluebook (online)
246 S.W.3d 433, 368 Ark. 351, 2007 Ark. LEXIS 12, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-state-ark-2007.