Hall v. State

812 S.W.2d 688, 306 Ark. 329, 1991 Ark. LEXIS 393
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJuly 15, 1991
DocketCR90-297
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 812 S.W.2d 688 (Hall 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
Hall v. State, 812 S.W.2d 688, 306 Ark. 329, 1991 Ark. LEXIS 393 (Ark. 1991).

Opinions

Donald L. Corbin, Justice.

Appellant, Neal Hall, was tried and convicted by a Pope County jury for the rape and kidnapping of an eleven-year-old girl. He was sentenced to forty years imprisonment for the rape charge and five years for the kidnapping charge; the sentences were to run concurrently. Appellant appeals the denial of his motion for new trial. We affirm.

The evidence presented at trial reveals that at approximately 8:00 or 8:30 on the morning of October 18, 1989, appellant kidnapped his eleven-year-old victim as she was walking to school. He flashed a gun at her, represented himself to be an undercover policeman, and told her to get in his car. He then took her into a wooded area, undressed her, blindfolded her, and raped her vaginally, anally and orally.

This evidence was presented through the testimony of the victim herself. The victim’s testimony was in complete accord with numerous other witnesses. Dr. Kingsley Bost, the pediatrician who examined the victim, testified she had been vaginally, anally and orally raped. Mike Modika, a school bus driver, testified that on the morning of October 18, 1989, he saw a girl who looked a lot like the victim get into a white car. Modika identified a photograph of appellant’s car as the car he saw the girl enter. Two other witnesses testified that on the morning of October 18,1989, they saw a white car pulled off the road in an area near the rape scene. Both of these witnessed identified photographs of appellant’s car as the car they saw. Still another witness testified that on October 18,1989, he picked up the victim on the roadside; she was terrified and crying. Yet another witness, Gladys Franklin, testified that she was a passenger on the bus driven by Modika. Franklin stated she knew both appellant and the victim and that she saw the victim enter appellant’s car on the morning of October 18, 1989. She also testified that she saw appellant’s car leave after the victim entered it.

As the single point presented in this appeal, appellant asserts the trial court erred in denying his motion for a new trial based upon the prosecutor’s failure to comply with the discovery request to notify appellant’s counsel of the felony convictions of material witnesses. Specifically, appellant argues the prosecutor should have notified counsel of the May 30, 1990 arson conviction of Gladys Franklin. Appellant alleges the prosecutor’s failure to disclose requested information precluded him from attacking Franklin’s credibility.

Appellant’s trial occurred on July 23 and 24, 1990. On February 5, 1990, appellant filed a “Request For Disclosure” specifically requesting “prior criminal convictions or charges or allegations of misconduct against persons whom the prosecuting attorney intends to call as witnesses____” The state responded to the request on February 20, 1990, listing Franklin as a witness, but failing to list any charges or convictions. The state’s response also stated that the response would be amended upon the finding of other witnesses or information. Although there was further written communication between the prosecutor and appellant’s counsel regarding discovery, no mention of Franklin’s guilty plea and sentence of ten years probation entered May 30, 1990, was made.

After trial and upon discovery of Franklin’s conviction, appellant moved for a new trial stating that the prosecutor’s failure to disclose the information prejudiced him in that he was precluded from impeaching Franklin’s testimony with the arson conviction. At a hearing on the motion, the trial court noted the state’s failure to comply with the request was not intentional, but an oversight. Not convinced that evidence of Franklin’s prior conviction would have made any difference in the trial, the trial court denied appellant’s motion.

Ark. R. Crim. P. 17.1(a) states in pertinent part:

(a) Subject to the provisions of rule 17.5 and 19.4, the prosecuting attorney shall disclose to defense counsel, upon timely request, the following material and information which is or may come within the possession, control, or knowledge of the prosecuting attorney:
(vi) any record of prior criminal convictions of persons whom the prosecuting attorney intends to call as witnesses at any hearing or at trial, if the prosecuting attorney has such information.

We have previously held that reversible error exists when a prosecutor in fact fails to comply with an appellant’s timely request for discovery information which results in prejudice to the appellant. Earl v. State, 272 Ark. 5, 612 S.W.2d 98 (1981).

There can be no doubt as evidenced in the foregoing discussion, that appellant filed a timely request for the information in question and that the state in fact failed to provide the requested information due to an oversight. Although we have previously considered a prosecutor’s intent in deciding whether there was a discovery violation, Lasley v. State, 274 Ark. 352, 625 S.W.2d 466 (1981), such intent or lack thereof is no longer relevant. See Yates v. State, 303 Ark. 79, 794 S.W.2d 133 (1990).

The key issue then is whether appellant was prejudiced by the prosecutor’s failure to disclose the requested information; absent a showing of prejudice, we will not reverse. Caldwell v. State, 295 Ark. 149, 747 S.W.2d 99 (1988). We hold appellant has not met his burden of showing prejudice. First, as noted by the trial court, given our lack of knowledge of whether the facts relating to Franklin’s arson conviction concern her truthfulness, we can only speculate that appellant’s counsel would have been allowed to impeach her credibility with this information. Second, the evidence of appellant’s guilt is overwhelming even absent Franklin’s testimony.

Excluding Franklin’s testimony, the overwhelming evidence against appellant consists of the testimonies of the witnesses, which are related at the beginning of this opinion and the victim’s testimony,which is corroborated by other evidence. When taken together, the testimonies of these other witnesses place both the victim and appellant’s car near the rape scene at the same time the day the rape occurred. The victim gave an extremely detailed account about her rapist and the circumstances surrounding the crime. Both in a photographic line-up and at trial, she identified appellant as her rapist and kidnapper. The reliability of her identification of appellant is strengthened by the numerous facts to which she testified and which were corroborated by other evidence.

The facts to which the victim testified and the other evidence which corroborates her testimony follow. The victim testified that while she was walking to school, a man wearing a jean jacket, bluejeans, black boots, and blue hat pulled beside her in a car and showed her a gun. She later identified a B-B pistol taken from appellant’s apartment as the gun she saw in the car. She testified that a hat taken from the dumpster in front of appellant’s apartment looked familiar to her. She also identified a picture of the boots taken from appellant’s apartment as the ones her rapist wore.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Harris v. State
35 S.W.3d 819 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2000)
Lee v. State
11 S.W.3d 553 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2000)
Rychtarik v. State
976 S.W.2d 374 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1998)
Hall v. State
951 S.W.2d 557 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1997)
McNeese v. State
935 S.W.2d 246 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1996)
Farmer v. State
923 S.W.2d 876 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 1996)
Opinion No.
Arkansas Attorney General Reports, 1994
Hunter v. State
875 S.W.2d 63 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1994)
Chism v. State
853 S.W.2d 255 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1993)
Scroggins v. State
848 S.W.2d 400 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1993)
Davasher v. State
823 S.W.2d 863 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1992)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
812 S.W.2d 688, 306 Ark. 329, 1991 Ark. LEXIS 393, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hall-v-state-ark-1991.