Thurman v. State

2 S.W.2d 50, 176 Ark. 88, 1928 Ark. LEXIS 660
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJanuary 30, 1928
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2 S.W.2d 50 (Thurman 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
Thurman v. State, 2 S.W.2d 50, 176 Ark. 88, 1928 Ark. LEXIS 660 (Ark. 1928).

Opinion

Humphreys, J.

Appellant was indicted in the circuit court of Garland County for murder in the first degree for shooting and killing Lafayette Branam. On the trial of the alleged crime he was convicted of murder in the second degree, and adjudged to serve a term of fifteen years in the penitentiary as a punishment therefor, from which is this appeal. ■

When arrested, appellant voluntarily confessed that he shot and killed Lafayette Branam on the day charged in the indictment. The confession was reduced to writing, and introduced in evidence on the trial of the cause, which is as follows:

“My name is Wayne Thurman. I am twenty-one years old, and reside at Red Oak, nine miles from Hot Springs. I will make a statement of my connection with the killing of Lafayette Branam. I left the house Monday morning about 8:30, and I was going down to Bill Parr’s place. Just before I’got to Bill’s I saw Branam and some of his children on a wagon. He was sitting in the back, and the best I could judge he had a shotgun. I couldn’t tell just what kind of a gun it was. I waited awhile after he had gone down the road, and then went on to Bill’s place: I was down there about a half an hour, I judge, and then I went back home. I got my rifle, a 30-caliber rifle, and I went about three-quarters of a mile west of our place, and then I turned to- the right and went on about a mile, and then I turned back to the right and went up White Oak Creek about a mile, to where Branam was at work in his field, plowing, and when I got there it was about 12 o’clock, and Branam was eating dinner, and so I Waited until after he had eaten dinner and started back to work in the field, and I went up to the wire fence, about one hundred yards of where he was at work, and I waited — he had gone a couple of rounds — and then I went on up closer, probably within fifty yards of him, and he came down to the creek to get a drink, and just as he got to the creek I raised up from where I was hiding, and kicked thé wire fence and said, ‘Branam, I am here to get you.’ When I spoke he was standing with his right side to me, and he turned his head and facing me, and, just as he turned facing me, I started firing. I shot five times, and, after I had shot what shells I had in my gun, I turned and went down the fence for about 250 yards, crossed the creek, and then recrossed it, and went across the road right in front of the Scott house, the old Scott house, and went down the road for about — an old road — for about 150 yards, and then turned back toward home. I went straight home, and when I got there Dr. Housley and his wife were there, and they had already told the folks that Branam had been killed. I went to my room and changed clothes, and lay down across the bed and waited for the officers. I bought the gun at Hall’s pawnshop, after Branam had killed my brother. After I left home, and before I got to Branam’s field, I fired one shot to test the gun. I had fired the gun previous to that time ten or twelve times. I kept the gun in my room. Branam staggered at the first shot, and I think he was on the ground when I fired the last. The gun was a 30, lever action, and it threw the shells when I worked the lever.- I threw all of the shells out at that place. I carried the gun back home, and carried it over in the field, and there I hid it. This confession is made voluntarily, and signed and sworn to on the day after the occurrence.”

The other evidence introduced by the State corroborated the statement made by appellant that he killed Lafayette Branam in the manner detailed in the confession. ■ .

Appellant made no attempt to contradict the evidence introduced by the State relative to the charge, but interposed the defense of insanity thereto.

•The first assignment of error for a reversal of the judgment is that the court allowed the prosecuting attorney, on cross-examination of Dr. T. B. Hill, introduced by appellant on the issue of his alleged insanity, to ask whether the headaches from which appellant suffered, and which he was called upon to treat, we,re the result of a wound appellant had received in his head some years before, or from dissipation or drunkenness. Appellant contends that the purpose of the question was to get before the jury a statement that he was given to excessive dissipation and drunkenness, in an effort to assail his character, which had not been put in issue. We cannot agree with the construction placed upon the question by appellant. Appellant had proved the injury to his head and subsequent suffering from headaches, in an effort .to show irresponsibility for his acts. This question was asked to test the physician’s knowledge of the cause of the headaches, whether the result of the injury, or from other causes. The witness answered that he did not know what caused the headaches, which discloses the wisdom of permitting the question. The impression had been left, after direct examination, that the headaches were the result of an injury to the head, as tending to prove irresponsibility. When the physician could nut connect the headaches with the injury, it weakened the effect of his testimony. The interrogatory was legitimate on cross-examination.

The next assignment of error for a reversal of the judgment is that the court allowed the prosecuting attorney to propound a cross-interrogatory to Dr. J. P. Randolph, one of appellant’s expert witnesses on the issue of insanity, which did not embrace all the undisputed facts in the testimony essential to the issue. The witness was not permitted to answer the question until instructed by the court to consider all the undisputed facts embraced in both appellant’s and the prosecuting attorney’s hypothetical interrogatories. This cured errors of omission in the prosecuting attorney’s interrogatories. Appellant also objected to the hypothetical question of the prosecuting attorney because it assumed as a fact that, after appellant bought the rifle with which he shot Lafayette Branam, he practiced shooting with it at a target. The argument is made that there is no evidence from which a legitimate inference might be drawn to the effect that he practiced shooting the gun at a target. Appellant did not claim to have fired the gun ten or twelve times at random in the air or at game. The legitimate inference is that he shot at some object, and any object at which he shot might have been characterized as a target. There was no error in thus describing the acts of appellant in firing the gun ten or twelve times in the interim 'between the date of purchase and the killing of Branam.

The next assignment of error for a reversal of the judgment was the refusal of the court to allow appellant to ask Dr. George M. Eckels, one of his expert witnesses on the issue of insanity, after he had answered a hypothetical question, whether he believed appellant was mentally responsible for the act of killing Lafayette Branam. If the question in the form asked was proper, the error in excluding the answer was cured by the subsequent testimony of the witness, to the effect that one in appellant’s condition could not distinguish between right and wrong the same as one in a normal condition, and that appellant could not, in his opinion, distinguish between right and wrong in the particular act of killing Lafayette Branam.

Appellant’s next assignment of error for a reversal of the judgment was the admission of the opinion of a.

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Bluebook (online)
2 S.W.2d 50, 176 Ark. 88, 1928 Ark. LEXIS 660, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thurman-v-state-ark-1928.