{
  "id": 1678855,
  "name": "Shirley Irene BUSH v. STATE of Arkansas",
  "name_abbreviation": "Bush v. State",
  "decision_date": "1977-05-16",
  "docket_number": "CR 76-232",
  "first_page": "577",
  "last_page": "580",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "261 Ark. 577"
    },
    {
      "type": "parallel",
      "cite": "550 S.W.2d 175"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ark.",
    "id": 8808,
    "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 34,
    "name_long": "Arkansas",
    "name": "Ark."
  },
  "cites_to": [
    {
      "cite": "251 Ark. 279",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "Ark.",
      "case_ids": [
        1633329
      ],
      "weight": 2,
      "year": 1971,
      "opinion_index": 0,
      "case_paths": [
        "/ark/251/0279-01"
      ]
    },
    {
      "cite": "223 Ark. 304",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "Ark.",
      "case_ids": [
        1650362
      ],
      "weight": 2,
      "year": 1954,
      "opinion_index": 0,
      "case_paths": [
        "/ark/223/0304-01"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "analysis": {
    "cardinality": 403,
    "char_count": 5515,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.893,
    "pagerank": {
      "raw": 1.2910244514671054e-07,
      "percentile": 0.619781114651858
    },
    "sha256": "b4517f6da63ac116971b8d3957523cbab0423cff70196612dfc727f68836397a",
    "simhash": "1:88c8be633edd6db9",
    "word_count": 923
  },
  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T16:40:25.982646+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "Shirley Irene BUSH v. STATE of Arkansas"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "George Rose Smith, Justice.\nThe appellant was convicted of capital murder committed in the perpetration of robbery and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Her principal points for reversal have to do with\u2019the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding of an intent to commit robbery and with the trial judge\u2019s communications with the jurors during their deliberations.\nUpon the first point there was an issue of fact for the jury. Mrs. Bush and her husband, in hitch-hiking back to Arkansas after a trip to Florida, were picked up by the decedent, Billy John Jones, in his truck and carried from Columbia, Louisiana, to Conway, Arkansas. At a Conway truck stop Bush left his wife and Jones in the truck for a short while. According to the confession of Mrs. Bush (the only eyewitness), Jones climbed into the sleeper, took off his clothes, and tried to pull Mrs. Bush up into the sleeper, assertedly with the intention of raping her. Mrs. Bush had a knife, with which she fatally stabbed Jones, principally in his neck. Upon Bush\u2019s return the couple at first concealed the crime by driving the truck, with Jones\u2019s body in it, to an isolated spot and abandoning it. Mrs. Bush said in her confession that during that trip she was wearing some of Jones\u2019s clothes and took $40 from a wallet she found in one of the pockets. A few days later Bush reported the crime and the location of the truck to the police.\nIt is argued that Mrs. Bush committed the homicide in defending herself and not in the perpetration of robbery. The jury, however, was not required to accept her account, especially as she was an interested participant. Furthermore, Jones\u2019s widow testified that he had more than $300 in cash when he left home two days before his death. Thus there was substantial evidence to support a finding that robbery was the motive for the crime.\nThe judgment must be reversed, however, as a result of the circuit judge\u2019s communications with the jury, even though the opposing attorneys were also at fault.\nThe jury, after several hours of deliberation, reported that they were hopelessly divided. The lawyers in the case, thinking a mistrial to be imminent, discussed the possibility of a negotiated plea of guilty. The prosecutor insisted upon a 21-year sentence, but the defense was unwilling to recommend more than 12 years. The attorneys, in a novel but misguided effort to obtain helpful information, agreed that the judge might confer with the jury to determine two things only: their numerical division and the degree of homicide upon which they were divided.\nJudge Roberts rashly agreed to counsel\u2019s joint request and conferred privately with the jury in the courtroom, after the accused, the attorneys, and everyone else had been excused. After a substantial length of time Judge Roberts sent the jury back to the jury room, reported to counsel the information that had been sought, and explained that, upon an inquiry by a juror, he had discussed with the jury the governor\u2019s possible pardoning power with respect to a life sentence without parole. He said he had told the jury that the legislature could not take away the governor\u2019s constitutional pardoning power. The judge also mentioned that one or two jurors had been confused, but he thought they were straightened out. Within five minutes the jury, after having been hopelessly deadlocked, returned a verdict of guilty and fixed the sentence at life imprisonment without parole.\nThe exact details of what happened are not known, for none of the discussions were recorded by the court reporter, and at the hearing upon the defendant\u2019s motion for a new trial, Judge Roberts refused to make any statement, sworn or unsworn, about his discussion with the jury. Of course the jurors were not competent witnesses; so the accused was left with no means of discovering whether prejudicial error occurred.\nThe motion for a new trial should unquestionably have been granted. It is immaterial that defense counsel did not at once object to the judge\u2019s having discussed the matter of possible parole with the jury, for that was the judge\u2019s own error. Bell v. State, 223 Ark. 304, 265 S.W. 2d 709 (1954). That the discussion took place at all must be regarded as prejudicial error, for, despite some inconsistencies in our earlier opinions, we made it unmistakably plain in Andrews v. State, 251 Ark. 279, 472 S.W. 2d 86 (1971), that jurors are not concerned with the parole system and consequently should not be given even completely accurate information upon that subject. Here it is a reasonable inference that the jurors would not have returned their actual verdict had they not been given Judge Roberts\u2019s explanation of the governor\u2019s pardoning power.\nThe appellant also complains that the instructions to the jury were misleading and confusing. That is true, apparently as a result of the court\u2019s having interposed oral comments in the course of reading a variety of written instructions. Nothing would be accomplished by an analysis of the court\u2019s charge to the jury; we can only suggest that a complete set of instructions be prepared by counsel before the case is retried. Finally, the availability to defense counsel of the witness MacKenzie\u2019s pretrial statement is moot, counsel eventually having seen it.\nReversed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "George Rose Smith, Justice."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Gene Worsham, for appellant.",
      "Bill Clinton, Atty. Gen., by: Joseph H. Purvis, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "Shirley Irene BUSH v. STATE of Arkansas\nCR 76-232\n550 S.W. 2d 175\nOpinion delivered May 16, 1977\n(In Banc)\nGene Worsham, for appellant.\nBill Clinton, Atty. Gen., by: Joseph H. Purvis, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0577-01",
  "first_page_order": 617,
  "last_page_order": 620
}