Engram v. State

15 S.W.3d 678, 341 Ark. 196, 2000 Ark. LEXIS 215
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedMay 4, 2000
DocketCR 99-928
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 15 S.W.3d 678 (Engram 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
Engram v. State, 15 S.W.3d 678, 341 Ark. 196, 2000 Ark. LEXIS 215 (Ark. 2000).

Opinion

W.H. “Dub” ARNOLD, Chief Justice.

Appellant Andrew Raymond Engram appeals ce. judgment of conviction and sentence of death for the June 5, 1997, capital murder and rape of Laura White, a security guard working at Sears in North Little Rock on the date of the offense. Appellant’s execution date was set for June 5, 1999, by the trial court. That date was stayed by order of this court on May 27, 1999, pending appeal.

Appellant filed a timely motion for new trial, which was denied by the trial court. Following the denial of the motion for new trial, appellant filed a notice of appeal of his conviction and sentence. Appellant raises the following six points on appeal:

1) The evidence was insufficient to sustain the verdict;
2) The court denied appellant’s constitutional right to confrontation by refusing to allow him to cross-examine the medical examiner about previous disciplinary action;
3) The court erred in overruling appellant’s objection to a police officer’s testimony that he did not believe appellant was truthful;
4) The overlap between the capital-murder and first-degree murder statutes created an unconstitutional risk that the death penalty was imposed in an arbitrary and capricious manner;
5) The trial court erred in submitting as three separate aggravating circumstances under Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-604(3) (Repl. 1997) appellant’s three prior convictions for violent offenses;
6) The trial court erred in admitting victim-impact evidence because such evidence is irrelevant under Arkansas sentencing procedures to the considerations for imposition of the death penalty.

We are not persuaded that any of these issues has merit, and we affirm.

I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

The appellant challenges the adequacy of the DNA-identity evidence introduced against him at trial. He contends that DNA evidence alone does not constitute sufficient evidence to support his conviction. At trial, the State’s DNA expert testified that the probability that the semen recovered from the victim belonged to a person other than the appellant was one in 600 trillion. The State contends that the appellant failed to preserve this argument on appeal, as he did not make a specific objection to the sufficiency of the DNA evidence below, but rather made a general objection to the sufficiency of the evidence in that he felt the State had failed to “identify” him as Ms. White’s killer.

We have held that in order to preserve a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, a defendant must make below the specific challenge he seeks to make on appeal. E.g., Conner v. State, 334 Ark. 457, 464, 982 S.W.2d 655, 658 (1998). When looking at the record in this case, it is apparent that appellant actually did not make a specific objection to the sufficiency of DNA evidence alone to prove identity. Further, appellant has cited no authority which supports his contention that DNA evidence alone cannot sufficiently prove identity.

As a general rule, where it is not apparent without further research that the argument is well-taken, we do not consider such arguments on appeal. Matthews v. State, 327 Ark. 70, 74, 938 S.W.2d 545, 547 (1997). Still, although appellant failed to offer any authority or convincing argument in support of his position that the DNA evidence alone was insufficient to prove identity to support his rape and capital-murder convictions, given that the appeal involves a sentence of death, we will address the merits of appellant’s argument. See Sublett v. State, 337 Ark. 374, 989 S.W.2d 910 (1999).

When we review a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we will affirm the conviction if there is substantial evidence to support it, when viewed in the fight most favorable to the State. See Sublett v. State, supra; Freeman v. State, 331 Ark. 130, 959 S.W.2d 400 (1998). Substantial evidence is that which is of sufficient force and character that it will, with reasonable certainty, compel a conclusion one way or the other, without mere speculation or conjecture. Id. Notably, the evidence may be either direct or circumstantial. See Gillie v. State, 305 Ark. 296, 808 S.W.2d 320, (1991). Circumstantial evidence can provide the basis to support a conviction, but it must be consistent with the defendant’s guilt and inconsistent with any other reasonable conclusion. Gillie, 305 Ark. at 301, 808 S.W.2d at 322 (citing Trotter v. State, 290 Ark. 269, 719 S.W.2d 268 (1986)).

The appellant has complained that the DNA evidence was insufficient, alone, to prove his identity. Appellant contends in support of his argument that the DNA laboratory was not certified and that this lack of certification significantly weakened the credibility of the results. Such a complaint, which actually has little to do with the sufficiency of the evidence and more to do with the weight of said evidence, is actually a dispute over credibility. In regard to questions of credibility, on appeal, this court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, recognizing that it is the jury’s province to resolve credibility disputes. See, e.g., Wilson, 332 Ark. 7, 11, 962 S.W.2d 805, 807. This principle is no less applicable to DNA evidence, when its credibility is being challenged. See Johnson v. State, 326 Ark. 430, 446-47, 934 S.W.2d 179, 186-87 (1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1242 (1997).

Next, appellant wrongly asserts that the DNA evidence was the sole proof of his identity as the perpetrator. His assertion seems to ignore two additional pieces of evidence introduced at trial that at least contribute to proof of his identity. The first is the state trooper’s eyewitness encounter with the appellant at the crime scene on the very night of the crimes; and the second is the appellant’s implausible explanation for being there, given that his time card from his job at Luby’s proved that he did not work that evening. Although circumstantial proof, both are evidence of identity and, in turn, guilt. See, e.g., Windsor v. State, 338 Ark. 649, 1 S.W.3d 20 (1999) (proximity testimony); Remeta v. State, 300 Ark. 92, 777 S.W.2d 833 (1989) (same); Goff v. State, 329 Ark. 513, 953 S.W.2d 38 (1997) (false explanation of suspicious circumstances). Further, the state presented circumstantial hair and fiber evidence linking the appellant to the crime. While the DNA evidence is substantial standing alone, it is undeniably sufficient when considered with the additional circumstantial evidence adduced at trial.

This court has, since Moore v. State, 323 Ark. 529, 915 S.W.2d 284 (1996) (holding that DNA evidence is no longer considered “novel scientific evidence”), consistently accepted DNA evidence as proof of guilt. See, e.g., Lee v. State, 326 Ark. 229, 931 S.W.2d 433 (1996).

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Bluebook (online)
15 S.W.3d 678, 341 Ark. 196, 2000 Ark. LEXIS 215, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/engram-v-state-ark-2000.