Claggett v. State
Claggett v. State
Opinion of the Court
Appellant Allen Claggett was convicted by a Jefferson County jury of one count of second-degree murder and one count of third-degree domestic battery. He was sentenced to sixty years in the Arkansas *171Department of Correction and ordered to pay a $ 15,000 fine for the murder conviction; he was sentenced to one year in the Jefferson County jail for the battery conviction. On appeal, he contends that the circuit court should have granted his motion for directed verdict on the murder charge. Because substantial evidence supports Claggett's conviction, we affirm.
A motion for a directed verdict is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Carter v. State ,
We therefore review the evidence that was presented at trial, examining it in the light most favorable to the State. In the early morning hours of June 2, 2017, Claggett's sister, Nancy Claggett, was at her home with her boyfriend, Henry Johnson, the victim in this case.
In response to Nancy's call, EMS first responders ascertained the nature of Johnson's injuries. Because of the severity of his head injuries, Johnson was taken to UAMS in Little Rock, where a CT scan revealed the presence of a subdural hematoma, or bleeding underneath the fibrous covering of the brain. Surgeons performed a craniotomy on Johnson.
Based on this evidence, Claggett was convicted of second-degree murder. A person commits murder in the second degree if, with the purpose of causing serious physical injury to another person, the person causes the death of any person.
We are unable to reach Claggett's purposeful-conduct argument. At trial, Claggett moved for directed verdict as follows:
I would move for a directed verdict. The State showed-there has been proof that there was a fight between the defendant and the decedent that resulted in the decedent having to have brain surgery. And there were complications from the brain surgery that led to his death. It was not caused immediately by the defendant. And there has been a death of the defendant [sic ], there was a fight, but there's been no evidence that the fight caused the death.
It is readily apparent from Claggett's directed-verdict motion that he did not argue that the State failed to prove that he acted with purposeful conduct. Arguments not raised below are waived, and parties cannot change the grounds for an objection on appeal but are bound by the scope and nature of the objections and arguments presented at trial. Goins v. State ,
We turn then to Claggett's second argument, which is that the evidence was insufficient to show that his conduct was the cause of Johnson's death. With respect to causation, Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-2-205 (Repl. 2013) provides as follows:
Causation may be found when the result would not have occurred but for the conduct of the defendant operating either alone or concurrently with another cause unless:
(1) The concurrent cause was clearly sufficient to produce the result; and
(2) The conduct of the defendant was clearly insufficient to produce the result.
Our supreme court has interpreted this statute to mean that when there are concurrent causes of death, conduct that hastens or contributes to a person's death is a cause of death. Anderson v. State ,
*173Cox v. State ,
For example, in Anderson,
On appeal in the instant case, Claggett concedes that it was clear that Johnson died from injuries sustained in his home. He suggests, however, that it was "possible that Henry Johnson suffered his injury when, after being struck by [Claggett], he hit the bed, got up, and fell over.... It is entirely possible that the care by the doctors at UAMS over the following eleven days could have caused, or at least contributed to, the death." He also notes that Dr. Erickson admitted during his testimony that he did not know whether Johnson's death would have occurred without the complications from the surgeries. He therefore contends, as did the appellant in Anderson , that the jury had to "rely on conjecture and speculation as to whether [his] actions were the cause of the death."
We cannot agree. Here, the State presented evidence that Johnson received a very serious head injury, a subdural hematoma. Based on his examination of Johnson's body during the autopsy, Dr. Erickson opined that the hematoma was consistent with a significant assault having taken place. Dr. Erickson described a subdural hematoma as being caused by a "significant snapping-type rotation of the brain" that can occur, for example, when a person falls off a horse, hits a tree while skiing, or when "someone hits, kicks, or elbows you in the head." He testified that the subdural hematoma was not initially from a direct blow but was instead "from a rapid rotational movement of the head during an impact" that "breaks small veins between that thick fibrous membrane and veins and the brain." When those small veins start bleeding, Dr. Erickson explained, there is very little room inside the skull for the blood to go, and the pressure of the blood underneath Johnson's skull caused his brain fissures to flatten out, which was why the doctors at UAMS performed the craniotomy. Dr. Erickson acknowledged that the postsurgical bleeding that Johnson experienced was a known and unfortunate complication of the craniotomy procedure, but he concluded that Johnson would not have required surgery if he had not experienced the significant head trauma.
We conclude that sufficient evidence exists to support Claggett's conviction. While the concurrent causes-the surgical complications, ensuing epidural hematoma, and pneumonia-may have contributed to Johnson's death, Claggett's conduct in beating and kicking Johnson in the head, thereby causing the initial subdural hematoma, was the cause of Johnson's death. Dr. Erickson unambiguously testified that *174Johnson would not have required surgery if he had not had significant trauma to his head and that he died as a result of the traumatic head injury. That trauma was caused by Claggett's actions. Stated another way, Johnson's death "would not have occurred but for the conduct of the defendant operating either alone or concurrently with another cause."
Affirmed.
Harrison and Murphy, JJ., agree.
As an initial matter, we note that in several places, the State cites directly to the record. This is in contravention of Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-2, which requires parties to refer to the appropriate page number of the abstract when citing testimony or other abstracted material. See Russell v. Russell ,
Johnson had obtained a one-year order of protection against Claggett in July 2016.
This procedure involved removing a portion of Johnson's skull to relieve the pressure from the blood building up on his brain.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.