Description
Eugene D. Bramblett, Camden, for appellant. Mike Beebe, Arkansas Attorney General, by: Clayton K. Hodges, Assistant Attorney General, Little Rock, for Appellee.
A jury in Ouachita County Circuit Court convicted appellant, Allen Jason Wooten, of first-degree murder of Ruiz Stone and abuse of her corpse and sentenced him to forty years' imprisonment. On appeal, appellant makes three allegations of error. We find no merit to his arguments and affirm.
Appellant described the events leading to Ms. Stone's death in a video-taped confession that was admitted into evidence. In that statement, he explained that his relationship with Ms. Stone began approximately a year before her death when he went to work for Coca-Cola in Camden, Arkansas as a route salesman and Ms. Stone worked there as an account salesperson. As he described it, Ms. Stone, pursued a sexual relationship with appellant. He stated that he initially resisted her sexual overtures, but two or three months after he first met her, he relented and had sexual intercourse.
Recounting the events of Monday, June 23, the day of Ms. Stone's death, appellant related that as he pulled into the plant at the gate that Ms. Stone met him and asked him about a particular job assignment. After he said he had completed the assignment, she told him that she wasn't sure, but she thought she might be pregnant, and she intended to find out for sure. He claimed that subsequent to that conversation, he responded to a page from Ms. Stone, and she requested that the two meet in a remote location to discuss the matter. He stated that she provided directions to the location.
According to appellant, he met Ms. Stone, and in the course of the conversation that Ms. Stone threatened his “damned kids and wife.” He alleged Ms. Stone grabbed him by the shirt and said, “We'll do it my way.” Appellant then described how he grabbed Ms. Stone around her throat with his right arm, how he was yelling at her and hitting her with his hand in the head and neck with her fighting him. He then explained that he stood up and started kicking her repeatedly even though she was no longer fighting him. Appellant further stated that he picked up a pipe that happened to be lying there next to him and started hitting her in the back, in the neck, and in the head even though she was completely unresponsive at that point. Appellant then confessed that he put her in the back of his truck, covered her with steel mesh, and drove away from the scene. He drove the body to another location, backed up the truck, took the body out, covered her with steel and sticks, threw the pipe away at the river bridge, went to the carwash and washed massive amounts of blood out of the truck, and went home where wrestling was on the television. Other testimony established that appellant's beating of Ms. Stone essentially destroyed her head and face.
Appellant first argues that the trial court erred in allowing Lieutenant Dickinson to testify that the victim told him that appellant had committed a battery against her prior to the homicide as hearsay under Arkansas Rule of Evidence 802 and as evidence of a prior bad act under Arkansas Rule of Evidence 404(b). Our supreme court has been constant and adamant that matters pertaining to the admissibility of evidence are left to the sound discretion of the circuit court. See, e.g., Martin v. State, 346 Ark. 198, 57 S.W.3d 136 (2001). Moreover, we will not reverse a circuit court's ruling on a hearsay question unless the appellant can show that the circuit court abused its discretion. See id.
The State argues that Ms. Stone's statement to Lieutenant Dickinson was admissible as a present sense impression under Arkansas Rule of Evidence 803(3) (2004). It further argues that even if the statement was not admissible as a present-sense-impression, it was nonetheless admissible under the catch-all exception for unavailable witnesses. See Ark. R. Evid. 804(b)(5) (2004). The State emphasizes that the testimony was evidence of appellant's motive and intent, necessary to refute appellant's defense that portrayed Ms. Stone as a vindictive, sexually promiscuous stalker and himself as an innocent victim of her wiles, who only resorted to her horrific murder because she goaded him into it. As the State explained, appellant murdered Ms. Stone, thereby unequivocally prohibiting her from testifying as a witness against him.
The state's argument that Lieutenant Dickinson's testimony was offered to prove motive echoes the reasoning of our supreme court's decision in Dednam v. State, 360 Ark. 240, 200 S.W.3d 875 (2005). In Dednam, the appellant's sole allegation of error was that the circuit court erred in allowing a police detective to testify to statements made to her by the murder victim with respect to another case, which allegedly constituted a motive for Dednam's acts. While the State is not required to prove motive, the State is entitled to introduce evidence showing all circumstances which either explain the act, show a motive for acting, or illustrate the accused's state of mind. Id. (citing Richmond v. State, 302 Ark. 498, 791 S.W.2d 691 (1990)). Where the purpose of evidence is to disclose a motive for the murder, anything and everything that might have influenced the commission of the act may be shown and the State is entitled to introduce evidence of circumstances that explain the act, show a motive, or illustrate the accused's state of mind. Hudson v. State, 85 Ark.App. 85, 146 S.W.3d 380 (2004). But even so, establishing motive does not equate to proving the truth of whether or not an appellant had committed the act complained of in the testimony. Dednam, supra.
In this case, it was not necessary for the State to prove the truth of whether appellant had bruised Ms. Stone's arm. A jury determination of whether appellant had bruised Ms. Stone ten days before he killed her pales in comparison with appellant's confession regarding the trauma he inflicted upon Ms. Stone the day he killed her. Where a statement is admitted for a legitimate, non-hearsay purpose, that is, not to prove the truth of the assertions therein, the statement is not hearsay under the traditional rules of evidence and the non-hearsay aspect raises no confrontation-clause concerns. Dednam, supra, (citing Tennessee v. Street, 471 U.S. 409, 105 S.Ct. 2078, 85 L.Ed.2d 425 (1985) (holding that Street's confrontation-clause rights were not violated by the introduction into evidence of an accomplice's confession for the non-hearsay purpose of rebutting Street's testimony that his confession was coercively derived from the accomplice's statement) (cited by the Supreme Court in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), for the proposition that the Confrontation Clause does not bar the use of testimonial statements for purposes other than establishing the truth of the matter asserted)).