Opinion
CACR08-1342
Opinion Delivered September 9, 2009
Appeal from the Pulaski County Circuit Court, [No. CR2007-3988], Honorable Willard Proctor, Jr., Judge, Affirmed.
A Pulaski County jury convicted appellant Keith Webster of domestic battery in the first degree and aggravated residential burglary and sentenced him to ten years' imprisonment in the Arkansas Department of Correction. Appellant's sole argument on appeal is that the trial court erred in denying his motion for a directed verdict because the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for domestic battery in the first degree. Finding no error, we affirm.
Shonette Hayes, the victim, testified that on August 27, 2007, she arrived at her apartment after work. She parked in front of her door, got out of her vehicle, and walked to her front door. In her hands, she carried breakfast from McDonald's, a soda, a shirt, and her keys. She unlocked her front door. When she pulled the key out of the door, "the door came open." Surprisingly, appellant was standing inside her home. He stated, "B — h where is my money?" She testified that appellant then "came at [her] with a knife." Hayes screamed, "Call the police." She dropped everything and ran backwards out the door to avoid being stabbed. As she ran around a vehicle, appellant stabbed her in the lower stomach. Even after the stabbing, she was able to continue trying to escape from appellant. Appellant continued to chase her. She testified that he chased her around the vehicle "about seven times." She finally ran upstairs into a neighbor's apartment. Appellant did not chase her up the stairs; rather, he grabbed the keys to Hayes's vehicle, jumped in, and drove off.
Hayes's neighbor brought her a towel to put on the stab wound. She testified that "[t]here was quite a bit of blood." The police and ambulance arrived, and Hayes was taken to the hospital, where she underwent surgery. She remained in the hospital for two days. She testified that she remembered Detective Eason coming to visit her in the hospital. When she left the hospital, she stayed with her son's father. She had a drain tube in her abdomen and was instructed to keep the wound packed with gauze. After approximately three weeks, the drain tube and gauze were removed. At the time of trial, she still had a scar on her abdomen.
Hayes testified that she met appellant on March 10, 2007, at her niece's birthday party. Around the end of April, she and appellant began "hanging out" and "talking on the phone." Appellant was a long-haul truck driver. She testified that he traveled often and it would be a week or two before the two would see each other. She stated that appellant would stay at the Best Western when he was in town and that she would visit him at the hotel. On one occasion, when Hayes's son was not at home, appellant was at her home from 4:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. Although she admitted in an earlier statement that she and appellant were intimate on only one occasion, at trial she testified that she and appellant had intercourse "three times for sure, but not many more than that." She specifically stated, "We were seeing each other." She explained that while appellant was traveling, he would repeatedly accuse her of seeing other men. He also complained about the infrequency of sexual intercourse between the two of them. However, despite his complaints, appellant told Hayes that he made enough money to allow Hayes to quit her job and quit going to school and that he had enough money to take care of Hayes and her son. Hayes testified that she was going to quit work and school, as they had discussed.
Hayes testified that in early August, the relationship ended and she and appellant "quit talking for a while." After some time, however, appellant began calling her again. At that point, she thought "everything had died down and [they] were cool." During one phone call, appellant asked Hayes if she would drive to Jacksonville and pick him up. Hayes made the drive and picked up appellant. While Hayes was driving, appellant put both hands around her neck and began choking her. Frightened, Hayes pulled into a gas station and asked him to go inside and pay for gasoline. When appellant exited the vehicle, Hayes drove away from the gas station and left appellant there. She stated that she had no plans to see him again. Soon thereafter, appellant began calling Hayes. He accused her of seeing another man and insisted on knowing the identity of the person she was allegedly seeing. The following Sunday, appellant made numerous calls to Hayes's cellular phone, and Hayes would "press talk and end, talk and end." When she quit answering her cellular phone, he began calling her at work. She told him to stop, but he did not. The last call came at approximately 2:00 a.m. Her shift ended at 7:00 Monday morning. It was that morning that Hayes found appellant, knife in hand, inside the front door of her apartment when she arrived home. He did not have a key, nor did he have permission to be in her apartment. Hayes testified that at the time of the stabbing, appellant was helping her pay her rent and car payment. However, she stated that she was "getting tired of him" and did not want anything more to do with him.
Detective Eason testified that he was assigned to Hayes's case. He visited with her while she was in the hospital, took photographs, and took a taped statement from her. He testified that he did not know if Hayes was on any pain medication when he spoke with her, but he was aware that she had undergone surgery the night before. He stated that her injuries were not life-threatening and that her surgery was successful. He also testified that on the day after the stabbing, while he was in the process of typing the arrest warrant, he learned that appellant had turned himself in. Appellant was transported to Eason's office, where Eason interviewed him. Appellant admitted that the vehicle he was driving belonged to Hayes. Detective Eason testified that during the taped interview, appellant denied breaking into Hayes's apartment and gave his version of the events of the day before. Detective Eason testified that appellant "cooperated to an extent." Mickey Holloway, a certified latent-print examiner for the Little Rock Crime Scene Unit, examined the fingerprints found on a broken piece of glass from a window at Hayes's apartment. He testified that the prints were "usable" and that when compared to appellant's prints, the results were positive.
At the conclusion of the State's case, defense counsel made a motion for a directed verdict alleging that the State had failed to prove that appellant and Hayes were involved in a "dating relationship" pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-26-302(1)(A) (Repl. 2006). Defense counsel renewed this motion at the close of the evidence. The trial court denied both motions. At the close of all the testimony and evidence, the jury convicted appellant of domestic battery in the first degree and sentenced him to ten years' imprisonment. This appeal followed.
A motion for a directed verdict is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Holt v. State, 85 Ark. App. 308, 151 S.W.3d 1 (2004) (citing Howard v. State, 348 Ark. 471, 79 S.W.3d 273 (2002)). When we review a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we will affirm the conviction if there is substantial evidence to support it, when viewed in the light most favorable to the State. Id. Substantial evidence is that which is of sufficient force and character that it will, with reasonable certainty, compel a conclusion one way or the other, without resort to speculation or conjecture. Id.
A person commits domestic battery in the first degree if, "with the purpose of causing serious physical injury to a family or household member, the person causes serious physical injury to a family or household member by means of a deadly weapon." Ark. Code Ann. § 5-26-303(a)(1) (Supp. 2007). The definition of "family or household member" includes persons who are presently or in the past have been in a dating relationship. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-26-302(2)(H) (Repl. 2006). That statute also defines "dating relationship" as "a romantic or intimate social relationship between two (2) individuals" determined by such factors as the length of the relationship, the type of the relationship, and the frequency of the interactions between the two individuals involved in the relationship. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-26-302(1)(A) (Repl. 2006). Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-26-302(1)(B) (Repl. 2006) excludes from the term "dating relationship" "a casual relationship or ordinary fraternization between two (2) individuals in a business or social context." Appellant alleges that the State offered insufficient proof that he and Hayes were involved in a "dating relationship" as defined by the statute.
The testimony showed that appellant and Hayes began talking and seeing each other in April 2007 after meeting at a party in March 2007 and that their relationship lasted through early August of that same year. Because appellant's work required him to travel, often times more than a week would pass before they were able to see each other again. Testimony showed that appellant would stay at a hotel when he was in town and that Hayes would visit him there, except for one occasion when appellant stayed at Hayes's house from 4:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. Appellant and Hayes had sexual intercourse at least three times during the relationship, and appellant constantly accused Hayes of being with other men while he was traveling. In early August, appellant and Hayes were having trouble, but testimony showed that things had settled down. On the weekend before the stabbing, Hayes drove to Jacksonville to pick up appellant. When appellant began choking Hayes, Hayes left him at a gas station. The night before the stabbing, appellant again accused Hayes of seeing other men when he was not around. This accusation led to appellant making harassing, repeated calls to Hayes's cellular phone and then her work phone. While Hayes testified that at this point she was getting tired of appellant, at the time of the stabbing, appellant was helping Hayes with her rent payment and her car payment. Here, while the relationship may have been coming to an end, there was sufficient proof that appellant and Hayes were involved in more than a "casual relationship" or "ordinary fraternization."
Based on the foregoing, we hold that substantial evidence supports appellant's conviction for domestic battery in the first degree.
Affirmed.
KINARD and HENRY, JJ., agree.