Noah Douglas Wright v. State of Arkansas

Cite as 2019 Ark. App. 364
Digitally signed by Elizabeth ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
Perry DIVISION I
Date: 2022.07.25 11:44:19
No. CR-19-105
-05'00'
Adobe Acrobat version:
OPINION DELIVERED: SEPTEMBER 11, 2019
2022.001.20169
NOAH DOUGLAS WRIGHT
APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE CRAIGHEAD
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT,
WESTERN DISTRICT
V. [NO. 16JCR-17-461]

HONORABLE PAMELA
STATE OF ARKANSAS HONEYCUTT, JUDGE
APPELLEE
AFFIRMED

ROBERT J. GLADWIN, Judge

Appellant Noah Wright appeals his conviction by a Craighead County Circuit Court

jury of first-degree battery. He argues that the circuit court erred when it relied on Arkansas

Rule of Evidence 403 (2018) to unfairly limit his cross-examination of a material witness.

We affirm.

I. Facts

On April 7, 2017, appellant was arguing with his girlfriend, Tiffany Painter, after she

had returned to appellant’s residence with her child after picking her up from the home of

her estranged husband, Danny Painter. While arguing, appellant threw Tiffany down by the

throat, demanded that she leave, and made various threats toward Danny. Danny responded

to a phone call from Tiffany, picked Tiffany and their child up on the road as they were

walking away from appellant’s residence, and returned with them to appellant’s residence

to pick up Tiffany’s clothes.
Upon arriving, Tiffany and appellant resumed arguing. Danny exited the vehicle and

stepped between the two of them. Although there is contradictory evidence as to who threw

the first punch, at some point, appellant struck at Danny with a knife he had clenched in

his hand, causing the knife to slash Danny’s neck. 1 After telling other individuals inside the

residence that he had cut Danny, appellant left the premises and disposed of the knife.

On May 8, 2017, a criminal information was filed charging appellant with battery;

aggravated assault on a family or household member; commercial burglary; theft of property

(value greater than $1,000 but equal to or less than $5,000); and first-degree criminal

mischief (damage less than or equal to $1,000), all as a habitual offender, related to two

incidents that allegedly occurred within a few hours on April 7–8, 2017. At a hearing on

September 4, 2018, the charges of aggravated assault and battery related to the altercation

with Danny were severed by the circuit court for separate trial, which was held on

September 6, 2018.

At trial, during the direct examination of Danny, the State introduced his medical

records, and those records were admitted into evidence without objection. Danny

confirmed that he was familiar with the records and subsequently testified regarding his

medical diagnosis—specifying his injury as “a 10-centimeter laceration deep to the left upper

neck from post-articular to anterior to left angle of mandible with rapid bleeding.” The

State also asked Danny to comment on his wounds and the effects of specific medical

assessments.

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The resulting cut required emergency surgery, and Danny temporarily lost function
of the left side of his face.

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During cross-examination, appellant’s attorney attempted to question Danny about

whether (1) he had been drinking beer on the night of the incident; (2) a blood test was

performed at the hospital; and (3) he was familiar with the results of any such blood-alcohol

test contained in his medical records that had previously been admitted into evidence.

Appellant’s attorney claimed that he wanted Danny to read to the jury the results of a blood

test from the hospital regarding his blood-alcohol concentration.

The State objected, arguing that the records had been admitted and that any personal

interpretation of what the report states would be inappropriate. The State suggested that the

only reason to read any part of the report would be to lead the jury to draw inferences that

would be based on facts not in evidence, associations, and inferences for which no

foundation had been laid.

Appellant’s attorney responded that he should be allowed to question Danny about

the records because Danny had already testified regarding the medical evaluations contained

therein and that he should be allowed to testify regarding the results of the “tox screen.”

Appellant’s attorney reiterated that he simply wanted Danny to read the report. Appellant’s

attorney further argued that he should be able to utilize the admitted medical records to

impeach Danny’s testimony about his level of intoxication at the time of the incident.

The circuit court denied his request, sustained the State’s objection on the basis of

jury confusion, and prohibited that line of questioning relying on Arkansas Rule of Evidence

403, finding that the report had been admitted and was the best evidence of what it said.

The circuit court stated, “I think that even if it is relevant or whatever, that would be so

prejudicial and misleading to them—unless there is somebody on there that has some

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medical background—they’re not going to be able to figure out what this means” in

reference to a listing of “125” in the report and how it might be interpreted by Danny. The

circuit court did allow appellant’s attorney to make his argument during closing arguments.

After the State rested, appellant’s attorney moved for a directed verdict on both the

aggravated-assault charge and the battery charge. The circuit court granted the motion on

the charge of aggravated assault but denied it regarding the battery charge. Appellant’s

attorney timely renewed the motion for directed verdict on the battery charge at the close

of the evidence, which was likewise denied.

The jury found appellant guilty of battery in the first degree and sentenced him as a

habitual offender to a term of thirty-five years in the Arkansas Department of Correction

pursuant to a sentencing order entered on September 7, 2018. A timely notice of appeal was

filed on October 2, 2018, and this appeal followed.

II. Standard of Review and Applicable Law

The decision of the circuit court to admit or exclude evidence is not reversed absent

an abuse of discretion. E.g., Miller v. State, 2018 Ark. App. 614, at 2, 567 S.W.3d 68, 70.

This requires the circuit court to have acted improvidently, thoughtlessly, or without due

consideration. Id. Even if the exclusion of evidence is in error, a conviction will not be

reversed when the error is harmless due to overwhelming evidence of guilt. E.g., Jefferson v.

State, 2017 Ark. App. 536, at 6, 532 S.W.3d 593, 597.

Relevant evidence is defined as “evidence having any tendency to make the existence

of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less

probable than it would be without the evidence.” Ark. R. Evid. 401. Evidence that is not

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relevant is not admissible. Ark. R. Evid. 402. The circuit court may exclude relevant

evidence “if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice,

confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste

of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.” Ark. R. Evid. 403.

III. Discussion

The sole issue on appeal is whether the circuit court erred when it relied on Rule

403 to limit appellant’s cross-examination of a material witness—the victim, Danny Painter.

Appellant argues that this ruling infringed on his due-process right to confront and cross-

examine witnesses called to testify against him as guaranteed by the Confrontation Clause

of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and made obligatory on the states by the

Fourteenth Amendment. See Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 294 (1973); Dutton v.

Evans, 400 U.S. 74 (1970); In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 273 (1948).

Appellant argues that the circuit court’s rationale that further testimony by Danny

about the records would be prejudicial and confusing to the jury unless the records could

be further explained through extra medical testimony is illogical because the court had

already allowed the State to question Danny without requiring further medical explanation.

Appellant maintains that prohibiting similar questioning by him deprived him of his due-

process right to a fair trial because it unfairly limited his right to cross-examine Danny.

We initially address procedural arguments raised by the State. First, a review of the

supplemental addendum and the record indicates that the blood-test results argued about at

trial are contained therein, albeit in incorrect order and out of sequence; therefore, we find

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no merit to the State’s argument that the record is incomplete, causing appellant’s argument

to be waived.

Next, the State maintains that the issue before us is considerably narrower than that

presented by appellant. Appellant’s counsel limited the scope of his objection at trial by

stating that he wanted Danny to read only the numbers from the blood test. Appellant’s

counsel did not argue, and the circuit court did not rule on, the basis of the Confrontation

Clause; thus, that claim is not preserved for appeal. See, e.g., Bertrand v. State, 363 Ark. 422,

428–29, 214 S.W.3d 822, 826–27 (2005) (holding that failure to obtain a ruling on a

Confrontation Clause argument does not preserve the issue for appeal). Although we agree

that appellant has failed to preserve a Confrontation Clause argument for our review, we

hold that the Rule 403 issue is properly preserved.

The circuit court found that the primary issue with allowing Danny to read aloud

the results from the medical records was potential jury confusion. The test result in question

reads as follows:

***SPECIAL CHEMISTRY***

Date COLL 4/7/17
Time 1830 Reference Units

ETHANOL | 125H | | (<10) MG/DL

We hold that the circuit court did not err in declining to allow Danny to read the

result. The danger inherent in reading these test results was that without further explanation

as to the specifics of the results, the jury would confuse the numbers with the more common

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measurement of blood-alcohol content. If appellant’s attorney wanted to present testimony

about the meaning of blood-test results, an expert should have been called to testify.

Testimony of the results of the blood test, in addition to fostering confusion, also

would have been more prejudicial than probative. Drug and alcohol use by a victim in a

case in which justification is at issue is often inadmissible as evidence whose probative value

is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. E.g., Wade v. State, 2017 Ark.

App. 157, at 5–6, 516 S.W.3d 772, 775 (holding that a victim’s drug intoxication was more

prejudicial than probative and that the appellant’s justification defense was not prejudiced

by exclusion of toxicology reports indicating the victim’s drug use because he did not know

this fact at the time of the murder and ample evidence was presented of the victim’s

aggressive and erratic behavior; see also Sipe v. State, 2012 Ark. App. 261, at 13, 404 S.W.3d

164, 172 (holding that the victim’s intoxication at time of death was more prejudicial than

probative, it did not matter in justification defense because appellant did not know about it

at the time, and appellant still brought to the jury’s attention, without objection by the State,

the victim’s being “amped up on meth and hydrocodones”). Likewise, in this case, there

was no evidence presented that appellant knew Danny had been drinking prior to the

altercation. Accordingly, any evidence of Danny’s possible intoxication would have been

more prejudicial than probative.

Finally, and in the alternative, even if the circuit court had abused its discretion by

not allowing Danny to recite the results of the “tox-screen,” any error was harmless. Danny

confirmed on direct and cross-examination that he had consumed two or three beers that

day. The results of the blood-alcohol test were in evidence in the medical records. Further,

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the circuit court allowed appellant’s attorney to argue to the jury the significance of the

blood-alcohol test results during closing arguments—and appellant’s attorney took full

advantage of the opportunity. Moreover, considering the overwhelming amount of

evidence that supported the verdict, appellant was not prejudiced by Danny’s failure to read

aloud the test results that were already in evidence and argued by appellant’s attorney during

closing.

Affirmed.

VAUGHT and BROWN, JJ., agree.

Terry Goodwin Jones, for appellant.

Leslie Rutledge, Att’y Gen., by: Chris R. Warthen, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

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