 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Wooten v. State11/9/2005
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-al
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Arkansas Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|