{ "id": 1910483, "name": "Maurice COLEMAN v. STATE of Arkansas", "name_abbreviation": "Coleman v. State", "decision_date": "1994-01-31", "docket_number": "CR 93-676", "first_page": "610", "last_page": "620", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "315 Ark. 610" }, { "type": "parallel", "cite": "869 S.W.2d 713" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark.", "id": 8808, "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "267 Ark. 278", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1719810 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1979, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/267/0278-01" ] }, { "cite": "756 S.W.2d 455", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.W.2d", "case_ids": [ 1892752, 1892785 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1988, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/296/0302-01", "/ark/296/0299-01" ] }, { "cite": "296 Ark. 299", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1892785 ], "year": 1988, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/296/0299-01" ] }, { "cite": "314 Ark. 289", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1912737 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1993, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/314/0289-01" ] }, { "cite": "315 Ark. 131", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1910470 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1993, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/315/0131-01" ] }, { "cite": "302 Ark. 532", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1884276 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1990, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/302/0532-01" ] }, { "cite": "284 Ark. 307", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1878689 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1984, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/284/0307-01" ] }, { "cite": "311 Ark. 398", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1897012 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1993, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/311/0398-01" ] }, { "cite": "307 Ark. 525", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1902400 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1992, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/307/0525-01" ] }, { "cite": "310 Ark. 384", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1898937 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1992, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/310/0384-01" ] }, { "cite": "303 Ark. 375", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1882800 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1990, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/303/0375-01" ] }, { "cite": "301 Ark. 235", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1885524 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1990, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/301/0235-01" ] }, { "cite": "292 Ark. 256", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1871163 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1987, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/292/0256-01" ] }, { "cite": "313 Ark. 253", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1914647 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1993, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/313/0253-01" ] }, { "cite": "313 Ark. 520", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1914606 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1993, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/313/0520-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 853, "char_count": 15760, "ocr_confidence": 0.888, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.5134053269699154e-07, "percentile": 0.667965584093899 }, "sha256": "a1f00eb4f76dd42e730d61324172ba80eb92af638035258ba8301e7baa27582e", "simhash": "1:a0cfc62d41089a3a", "word_count": 2633 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T19:39:34.144281+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Maurice COLEMAN v. STATE of Arkansas" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Jack Holt, Jr., Chief Justice.\nThis is an appeal from a criminal conviction on the charge of first-degree murder in the slaying of nineteen-year-old Stephen Jerome Woodard. The appellant, Maurice Coleman, was sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, he raises three arguments for reversal: (1) his custodial statement should have been suppressed, (2) the trial court erred in failing to grant Coleman\u2019s directed verdict motion, and (3) evidence of his prior convictions should not have been admissible. We affirm.\nI. Failure to grant motion for directed verdict \u2014 Sufficiency of the evidence\nWe address Coleman\u2019s directed verdict contention first because it involves a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence which must be considered prior to a review of trial errors. See Owens v. State, 313 Ark. 520, 856 S.W.2d 288 (1993). The directed verdict motions were properly made and preserved.\nA motion for a directed verdict is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Friar v. State, 313 Ark. 253, 854 S.W.2d 318 (1993). The test for determining the sufficiency of the evidence is whether there is substantial evidence to support the verdict. Ricketts v. State, 292 Ark. 256, 729 S.W.2d 400 (1987). On appeal we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the appellee and sustain the conviction if there is any substantial evidence to support it. Abdullah v. State, 301 Ark. 235, 783 S.W.2d 58 (1990). Evidence is substantial if it is of sufficient force and character to compel reasonable minds to reach a conclusion and pass beyond suspicion and conjecture. Friar, supra; Hodge v. State, 303 Ark. 375, 797 S.W.2d 432 (1990). A defendant\u2019s intent to commit murder may be inferred from the type of weapon used, and the nature, extent, and location of the wounds. Allen v. State, 310 Ark. 384, 838 S.W.2d 346 (1992).\nArkansas Code Annotated \u00a7 5-10-102(a)(2) (Repl. 1993) provides that a person commits murder in the first degree if, \u201cWith a purpose of causing the death of another person, he causes the death of another person.\u201d Coleman claims that the evidence was insufficient, stressing that \u201cthere was no plausible connection between the death of Steven Jerome Woodard and Maurice Coleman.\u201d This contention is not true.\nThe strongest evidence supporting Coleman\u2019s conviction is his custodial statement to the police in which he admitted the following: He, Shawn \u201cToo Short\u201d Jefferson, and the victim travelled to Williams Park in Blytheville, Arkansas, after having consumed crack cocaine. The three men were in a white car driven by Woodard \u2014 he was in the backseat and Jefferson in the front \u2014and Woodard and Jefferson were quarreling over a statement Woodard had made to the police regarding a murder that had occurred in Cherokee Court a few days earlier, when he produced a chrome semi-automatic .25 handgun, fired at Woodard from the backseat, striking him in the back of the head. Jefferson dragged Woodard out of the car, intending to put him in the trunk, when Woodard ran a short distance yelling, \u201cI\u2019m dead.\u201d Woodard fell, and he and \u201cToo Short\u201d obtained a tire tool and took turns repeatedly beating him on the head. Nevertheless, Woodard refused to die, and they \u201cdrove over him and back\u201d with the car \u201ctrying to make sure he was dead.\u201d Believing Woodard was still alive, they placed him in the trunk, drove to \u201cSenior Citizens Pond\u201d and partially submerged the car in the water.\nIn his statement, Coleman also referred to one of Woodard\u2019s shoes that Jefferson had thrown away from Woodard\u2019s body. A shoe was discovered by Detective Hill at Williams Park. He identified to the officers and to the jury a shirt worn by him on the night of the murder that was submitted to the crime lab for tests. Although stains on the shirt were identified as human blood, there was not enough present to positively identify it as the victim\u2019s blood.\nOther witnesses testimony corroborates parts of Coleman\u2019s statement to the police. Lucretia Jones, Woodard\u2019s girlfriend, testified that Woodard had access to her car, a 1981 white Ford, and that she discovered it missing the morning of July 21,1992. She later identified the car the police officers pulled from a pond which contained Woodard\u2019s body in its trunk as her car.\nKim Smith, Woodard\u2019s sister, testified that she saw her brother, Coleman, Jefferson, Margaret James, and others, at her apartment the night before Woodard disappeared. According to her testimony, at one point she looked outside and saw her brother and Jefferson \u201cfixing to charge each other.\u201d Later, she saw Woodard leave in the white Ford automobile and saw Coleman and Jefferson leave on foot in the same direction as Woodard was driving. Minutes later, she saw the car come \u201cflying out of the project.\u201d She tentatively identified the driver as her brother, the backseat passenger as Coleman and Jefferson as sitting in front.\nMargaret James testified that Coleman and Jefferson arrived at Ms. Smith\u2019s apartment together and Woodard arrived by himself, having driven in his girlfriend\u2019s car. When Woodard left and got in the car, she saw Coleman and Jefferson leave on foot. About five minutes later, she saw the car drive by. She assumed the three male occupants were Woodard, Coleman, and Jefferson.\nFloyd Moran testified that he often picked up cans at local parks, and on July 21, 1992, he went to Williams Park in Blytheville. He reported to the police that there was an area of pavement near a shelter that appeared to be marked by a large amount of fresh blood and shirt buttons. During Detective Hill\u2019s investigation of the park, he discovered body tissue, an earring, shirt buttons, and a shoe. The shoe was later matched to its mate on Woodard\u2019s body.\nThe gun, a chrome .25 semi-automatic pistol, was discovered, due to a lead from Jefferson, buried in a bean field located about two miles from Williams Park. A bullet recovered from the dash on the driver\u2019s side of the Ford matched the recovered firearm. Ron Andrejack, a firearms examiner with the State Crime Lab, testified that the bullet fragments recovered from Woodard\u2019s body were .25 caliber but were so mutilated that identification with a specific .25 caliber firearm was impossible.\nDr. William Stumer, Chief Medical Examiner with the State Crime Lab, testified regarding the results of his autopsy of Woodard. He discovered gunshot wounds on three locations on the victim: three on the right side of his head, three to his back and a \u201cthough and through\u201d superficial wound on the right shoulder. Sturner also described abrasions on various parts of the deceased \u2014 on his head, chest, shoulders, elbow, knuckles \u2014 consistent with having been dragged or scraped across pavement. These witnesses\u2019 testimony is corroborative and consistent with Coleman\u2019s statement to the police. This evidence, together with Coleman\u2019s statement, is more than sufficient to support the verdict of first-degree murder.\nColeman argues that there was not sufficient corroboration of the accomplice testimony of Jefferson. Due to the facts that Jefferson neither testified nor was he charged as an accomplice, and the jury was not instructed as to accomplice liability, this argument is without basis.\nII. Voluntariness of custodial statement\nColeman next contends that the police coerced him into making his taped confession and, therefore, the trial court erred in refusing to suppress his custodial statement.\nCustodial statements are presumed involuntary, and the State has the burden of proving otherwise. Johnson v. State, 307 Ark. 525, 823 S.W.2d 440 (1992). In considering a motion to suppress a custodial statement, we make an independent determination of the voluntariness of the confession but do not set aside the trial judge\u2019s finding unless it is clearly against the preponderance of the evidence. Henderson v. State, 311 Ark. 398, 844 S.W.2d 360 (1993).\nTypically, the question of whether the trial court erred in admitting a confession into evidence is two pronged: (1) whether the trial court erred in holding that the proof showed that the waiver and confession were voluntarily given; and (2) whether the trial court erred in holding that the proof showed that the waiver and confession were knowingly and intelligently given. See Weger v. State, No. CR93-408 (January 24, 1994). In his brief, Coleman addresses both the issue of voluntariness and whether or not the proof showed his waiver and confession were knowingly and intelligently given. However, in Coleman\u2019s motion to suppress, as abstracted, he questions only the voluntariness of his confession and notes that the court\u2019s ruling on suppression of involuntary statement was denied. For this reason, we limit our discussion to this single issue.\nThe testimony is in conflict on the issue of voluntariness. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, Blytheville Police Detectives Hill and Gann submitted that they did not coerce or threaten Coleman in any way. Coleman was arrested for the murder of Woodard, was read his rights, and signed a rights-waiver form. He was questioned that day by Detective Hill, but this interview was not recorded. Coleman was then sent to Jonesboro for a polygraph test but was returned to the Blytheville jail that same evening. At about 8:30 a.m. the following day, Detective Gann advised Coleman of his rights and had him sign a second rights waiver form. From about 8:30 a.m. until his talk with Coleman at 10:30 a.m. Gann was fingerprinting and photographing prisoners, including Coleman. At 10:30 a.m. Gann resumed his contact with Coleman and at 11:30 a.m., Gann, along with Hill, recorded the statement at issue.\nColeman contends that on the morning of the recording he repeatedly told Hill that he \u201cdidn\u2019t have no knowledge of this situation,\u201d to which Hill allegedly responded, \u201cWhen you sit here and you pretend you can\u2019t remember nothin\u2019 you say your mind is so gone where you can\u2019t remember being here, this taking place. We got a different version from Shawn Jefferson. As long as you sit here and play this little game. . .1 give you my word. . . that you\u2019re going to get death row.\u201d Hill added, \u201cYou know Jerome as well as I do. He ain\u2019t worth dying over because you know as well as I do he was a known drug dealer.\u201d Coleman contends that he finally agreed to make a statement after Hill told him again that if he did not make some statement regarding what he had done, he would \u201csee to it that you get death row or lethal injection.\u201d Coleman also claims it scared him when Hill advised, \u201cIf I wanted to help myself \u2014 life or maybe forty or fifty years but at least you got some chance. The way you\u2019re playing it I\u2019m going to see to it that you will never get to see the streets no more if you get lethal injection or the electric chair.\u201d When Coleman asked Hill if he could have a lawyer present when he made his statement, Hill responded, \u201cYou know yourself there ain\u2019t no way you can have a lawyer present now. We read you your rights and everything but you know yourself you can\u2019t get no lawyer until after you, get your bond set and get in Circuit Court.\u201d\nColeman now claims, as he did in his testimony at the Denno hearing and before the jury, that the police basically scripted his tape-recorded statement for him and that he gave the statement due to threats of \u201cdeath row\u201d or \u201clethal injection.\u201d However, the facts as to these claims are disputed. Both Hill and Gann testified that they did not threaten, promise or coerce Coleman in any way, although Hill did admit that he confronted Coleman with elements of Jefferson\u2019s statement to the police that implicated him in the murder of Woodard. Further, Coleman\u2019s allegation that he asked for a lawyer is denied by the officers and is not reflected in his tape-recorded statement.\nThe conflicting testimony during the Denno hearing presented issues of credibility to be resolved by the trial court. See Fleming v. State, 284 Ark. 307, 681 S.W.2d 390 (1984). Clearly, the recorded statements given by Coleman, together with the record of the proceedings on the motion to suppress, supported the trial court\u2019s refusal to grant the motion to suppress his recorded statement. See Morris v. State, 302 Ark. 532, 792 S.W.2d 288 (1990). Coleman renewed his objections to the voluntariness of the confession at trial when his taped confession was admitted to the jury. When he testified in his own defense, he again denied his participation in the murder, claiming that the officers had scared him into making his confession. His credibility then became a question for the jury to decide. See Moore v. State, 315 Ark. 131, 864 S.W.2d 863 (1993); Jones v. State, 314 Ark. 289, 862 S.W.2d 242 (1993).\nIII. Evidence of prior convictions admitted to impeach\nFor his last argument for reversal, Coleman claims that the trial court abused its discretion in permitting the State to impeach him with evidence of his prior convictions. Coleman filed a motion in limine asking that the evidence of his two prior convictions occurring in the last ten years be inadmissible in the event that he took the stand. Coleman contended that the prejudicial value of such evidence in a murder trial outweighed the probative value. The trial court found that Coleman\u2019s prior convictions for burglary and theft of property could be used to impeach him, explaining that, \u201cThe question of his \u2014 should he testify, his truthfulness would be an issue and the long standing tradition is to allow impeachment as to truthfulness on burglary and theft.\u201d\nRule 609(a) of the Arkansas Rules of Evidence provides the general rule for attacking the credibility of a witness with evidence of prior convictions:\nFor the purpose of attacking the credibility of a witness, evidence that he has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted but only if the crime (1) was punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one (1) year under the law under which he was convicted, and the court determines that the probative value of admitting this evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect to a party or a witness, or (2) involved dishonesty or false statement, regardless of the punishment.\nThe trial court has considerable discretion in determining whether the probative value of a prior conviction outweighs its prejudicial effect and will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. Pollard v. State, 296 Ark. 299, 756 S.W.2d 455 (1988). This rule concerns itself with the credibility of a witness who is offering testimony in the current case and admissibility must be decided on a case-by-case basis. Id. When a defendant in a criminal case takes the stand in his own behalf, credibility becomes an issue and the State may, under certain circumstances, test that credibility by asking the defendant if he has been convicted of certain crimes. Gustafson v. State, 267 Ark. 278, 590 S.W.2d 853 (1979).\nSince Coleman disputed the accuracy of his recorded statement to Detective Gann, his credibility was at issue. When testifying before the jury, Coleman claimed that the detectives had coerced him into making the recorded statement and that \u201cThey did everything but write a script for me to follow while giving this statement so I\u2019d be sure and accurate when I said it.\u201d Under the circumstances, admission of his two prior convictions for burglary and theft was not error.\nThe record has been examined in accordance with Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-3(h), and it has been determined that'there were no rulings adverse to the appellant which constituted prejudicial error.\nAffirmed.", "type": "majority", "author": "Jack Holt, Jr., Chief Justice." } ], "attorneys": [ "Bill E. Ross, by: Mikke Connealy Bracey, for appellant.", "Winston Bryant, Att\u2019y Gen., by: Kent G. Holt, Asst. Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Maurice COLEMAN v. STATE of Arkansas\nCR 93-676\n869 S.W.2d 713\nSupreme Court of Arkansas\nOpinion delivered January 31, 1994\nBill E. Ross, by: Mikke Connealy Bracey, for appellant.\nWinston Bryant, Att\u2019y Gen., by: Kent G. Holt, Asst. Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee." }, "file_name": "0610-01", "first_page_order": 642, "last_page_order": 652 }