{ "id": 8720231, "name": "John R. DEGLER v. STATE of Arkansas", "name_abbreviation": "Degler v. State", "decision_date": "1974-12-16", "docket_number": "CR 74-109", "first_page": "388", "last_page": "394", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "257 Ark. 388" }, { "type": "parallel", "cite": "517 S.W.2d 515" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark.", "id": 8808, "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "450 P. 2d 865", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "P.2d", "year": 1969, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "75 Cal. Rptr. 401", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Cal. Rptr.", "year": 1969, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "209 F. 2d 867", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.2d", "case_ids": [ 557937 ], "year": 1954, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f2d/209/0867-01" ] }, { "cite": "333 U.S. 364", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6157998 ], "year": 1948, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/333/0364-01" ] }, { "cite": "256 Ark. 343", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8720403 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1974, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/256/0343-01" ] }, { "cite": "244 Ark. 314", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8719556 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1968, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/244/0314-01" ] }, { "cite": "384 U.S. 737", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 12047392 ], "year": 1966, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/384/0737-01" ] }, { "cite": "379 U.S. 89", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 11728831 ], "year": 1964, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/379/0089-01" ] }, { "cite": "394 U.S. 721", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6179734 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1969, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/394/0721-01" ] }, { "cite": "246 Ark. 876", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1604041 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1969, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/246/0876-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 676, "char_count": 11395, "ocr_confidence": 0.905, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.531887975253982e-06, "percentile": 0.992065174456117 }, "sha256": "077332159c6a58a8bd18de2910a1222ab557db7c8424549fec213163f7a0a8e0", "simhash": "1:8b5299046547e8fa", "word_count": 1947 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T15:16:07.797047+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "John R. DEGLER v. STATE of Arkansas" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "George Rose Smith, Justice.\nThe appellant was charged with felony murder, in that he killed Curtis Turner during the perpetration of larceny. The jury returned a verdict of guilty and imposed a life sentence. Four points for reversal are argued.\nFirst, it is contended that when this case was tried in the court below, a homicide committed in the perpetration of larceny no longer constituted a felony murder. Upon that premise it is arged that Degler could not lawfully be convicted of any offense greater than second-degree murder.\nWe cannot sustain that contention. This homicide occurred on June 12, 1973. Larceny was then included in the definition of felony murder. Ark. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 41-2205 (Repl. 1964). But larceny was not included in a similar definition contained in Act 438 of 1973. Ark. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 41-4702 (A) (Supp. 1973). Even though Act 438, absent an emergency clause, did not take effect until more than a month after the homicide now in question, the appellant insists that Act 438 was merely procedural and thus inapplicable to cases tried after its effective date.\nThere are two answers to the appellant\u2019s argument. First, the purpose of Act 438 was to reinstate capital punishment for certain crimes only. Although the Act dropped larceny from the definition of capital offenses, the older definition appears to have been retained as a \u201clife felony\u201d by \u00a7 4 of Act 438. \u00a7 41-4704. Secondly, a change in the definition of murder is substantive rather than procedural. In fact, we can think of no provision in the criminal law that is more plainly substantive than the definition of the crime. Hence the older definition would be controlling in the trial of the case even if it had been repealed after the commission of the homicide. Ark. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 1-103 (Repl. 1956); Clark v. State, 246 Ark. 876, 440 S.W. 2d 205 (1969).\nSecondly, it is contended that the trial court should have excluded Degler\u2019s confession and the State\u2019s allied proof that Degler later showed the officers where he had thrown the murder weapon and the stolen property. It is argued that the officers arrested Degler without probable cause and that therefore the confession and accompanying proof were inadmissible. Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721 (1969); Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89 (1964). In the Beck case the court said that the validity of an arrest without a warrant, as here, depends upon whether the officers had probable cause to make it \u2014 \u201cwhether at that moment the facts and circumstances within their knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that the petitioner had committed or was committing an offense.\u201d\nUpon this point for reversal the appellant\u2019s recitation of the pertinent facts is so greatly abbreviated that we must discuss the proof in some detail. The homicide took place at what is referred to as the old State Dairy Farm house, in a rural part of Pulaski county. The house was casually frequented by a number of young people; \u201call the kids\u201d that wanted to come there were welcome. (Degler was 22 at the time of the crime.) Two of the group had rented the house, but they were staying in Little Rock at the particular time in question.\nOn June 11, 1973, five young persons were at the house during the day. Charles Martin and Shirley Mooser were living there and had a key to the house. Degler, David Williamson, and Curtis Vanderpool were there during a substantial part of the day. Vanderpool left before the others did. Degler and Williamson, who had been drinking beer together for several hours, left at about 8:30 p.m., leaving Degler\u2019s distinctive yellow car still at the house. When Martin and Shirley also departed at about 9:00 p.m., they left the house unoccupied and locked. The decedent, Curtis Turner, had been at the house for about an hour on the preceding day, but he does not appear to have been there on the day in question.\nMartin and Shirley returned at about 30 minutes after midnight. Curtis Turner\u2019s car was there, but Degler\u2019s yellow car was gone. Turner\u2019s dead body was lying on the front porch. Martin found that \u201ca lot of stereo equipment and television and stuff\u201d that had been there earlier was missing. Martin telephoned the sheriff\u2019s office to report the homicide. Two deputies \u2014 Harold Munn and another \u2014 came out to investigate. Munn also questioned several young people at the sheriff\u2019s office at three or four o\u2019clock in the morning.\nAt about 9:30 that morning Officer Munn arrested Degler at his trailer home in North Little Rock. Munn, of course, had learned details of the homicide at the scene. He knew that Degler and Williamson were very good friends and traveled in each other\u2019s company. He had learned that one of them had a .22-caliber pistol. The police department had determined that a small-caliber weapon had been used in the killing. Munn knew that Degler\u2019s yellow car had been left on the premises before the homicide, and since the officer participated in the investigation at the house, it is reasonable to infer that he knew that the car was not there later on.\nWe are of the opinion that the trial court, drawing reasonable inferences from the testimony as a whole, was justified in finding that there was probable cause for the arrest. This case is quite unlike Davis v. Mississippi, supra, cited by the appellant. In Davis the police, acting upon information that a rape had been committed by a Negro youth, picked up from 40 to 50 such youths for questioning. In the case at bar the information obtained by the officers implicated only Degler and Williamson. Those two young men had been at the Dairy Farm house during much of the day, had apparently been armed with a .22 pistol, had left Degler\u2019s car at the house when they departed together at about 8:30 p.m., and had evidently returned for it at some time before the homicide was discovered at 12:30 a.m. There is no indication in the record that the officers\u2019 investigation turned up facts tending to incriminate anyone other than Degler and Williamson. Moreover, this was not a case in which the officers could gather more data by obtaining a search warrant for the suspects\u2019 .22-caliber pistol, so that its test-fired bullets could be compared ballistically with those found in the victim\u2019s body. That procedure would not have been superior to an arrest in the officers\u2019 search for the truth, because the requirement of probable cause applies to an application for a search warrant as well as to an arrest. The officers acted reasonably upon the available facts; we are unwilling to say that the trial court was wrong in its conclusion that probable cause for the arrest existed.\nThirdly, the appellant contends that his confession should have been excluded as having been involuntarily made. In passing upon this contention we are required to review the evidence and make an independent determination of the ultimate issue of voluntariness. Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U.S. 737 (1966). We have recognized that duty ever since our decision in Harris v. State, 244 Ark. 314, 425 S.W. 2d 293 (1968), but we have not yet defined the standard to be followed in reaching our determination. See the concurring opinion in Vault v. State, 256 Ark. 343, 507 S.W. 2d 111 (1974). That omission necessarily makes it difficult for opposing counsel to argue the point on appeal. We now set the issue at rest by stating explicitly that in each case we will make an independent determination based upon the totality of the circumstances and that the trial judge\u2019s finding of voluntariness will not be set aside unless it is clearly against the preponderance of the evidence, which we take to be the same standard of review as the \u201cclearly erroneous\u201d rule followed by the federal courts. United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364 (1948); Maple Island Farm v. Bitterling, 209 F. 2d 867 (8th Cir. 1954).\nDegler was arrested at about 9:30 a.m., was warned of his rights, and signed a \u201cwaiver of rights\u201d, which recited the time as 9:40 a.m. At 10:10 Degler signed his first statement, in which he denied any part in the crime. It does not appear that his interrogation continued after his signing that statement.\nThe second suspect, Williamson, was arrested at about two o\u2019clock. Williamson, after having been questioned, signed a statement (at a recited time of 2:10) in which he accused Degler of having fired the fatal shots. The officers then showed Williamson\u2019s statement to Degler, who read it and announced his desire to change his own statement. Degler then signed a statement (at a recited time of 3:35 p.m.) in which he said that he and Williamson had gone back to the house, had found nobody there, and had decided to take the stereo and t.v. set. Degler was carrying Williamson\u2019s gun. As Degler came out of the house \u201cthis man jumped up suddenly.\u201d Degler said that he was scared and fired three times. He then \u201ctook the player and t.v. to a spot along the road and ditched them.\u201d After signing the second statement Degler guided the officers to the place where the stolen property and murder weapon were recovered.\nThe record falls decidedly short of showing that the trial court\u2019s finding of voluntariness is clearly against the preponderance of the evidence. Although Degler was detained for some five and a half hours, he does not appear to have been subjected to interrogation during most of that time. Degler makes no assertion that he was mistreated. He does say, and the officers in effect admit, that he was told that he would feel better if he told the truth and got it off his chest. Degler stated, however, that the officers did not say how it would help him. Therre was certainly no offer of leniency. During the interrogation Degler was shown a Polaroid photograph of the victim\u2019s body, as it was found on the front porch, but there appears to be nothing particularly gruesome or inflammatory about the photograph (which is to be found in the record filed in Williamson\u2019s appeal from his conviction). It is also argued that the officers should not have shown Degler the statement that Williamson had made, but we do not see that Degler\u2019s constitutional rights were thereby violated. In this connection the appellant cites People v. Johnson, 75 Cal. Rptr. 401, 450 P. 2d 865 (1969), but there the court found that the codefendant\u2019s statement had been unlawfully obtained, so that the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doc-tine was controlling. Here ther\u00e9 is no similar proof that the codefendant\u2019s proof was unlawfully obtained. We find no error in the trial judge\u2019s admission of the confession into evidence.\nFinally, the appellant, who had signed a confession on June 12, complains that the trial court refused to allow him to show by the testimony of cellmates in the Pulaski County jail that more than two months later Williamson, who was also in the jail cell, made threats against the appellant and his family in order to force the appellant to take the blame for the crime. We agree with the trial court\u2019s conclusion that threats made more than two months after the date of the confession had no bearing upon its voluntariness.\nAffirmed.", "type": "majority", "author": "George Rose Smith, Justice." } ], "attorneys": [ "Gene Worsham, for appellant.", "Jim Guy Tucker, Atty. Gen., by: 0. H. Hargraves, Deputy, for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "John R. DEGLER v. STATE of Arkansas\nCR 74-109\n517 S.W. 2d 515\nOpinion delivered December 16, 1974\n[As modified January 27, 1975.]\nGene Worsham, for appellant.\nJim Guy Tucker, Atty. Gen., by: 0. H. Hargraves, Deputy, for appellee." }, "file_name": "0388-01", "first_page_order": 423, "last_page_order": 429 }