Westbrook v. State
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
Cite as 2009 Ark. App. 723
ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION I
CA09-174
No.
ROMORIOUS WESTBROOK
APPELLANT
Opinion Delivered
November 4, 2009
V.
APPEAL FROM THE CRITTENDEN
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT,
[NO. JV-2008-160]
STATE OF ARKANSAS
HONORABLE LEE FERGUS, JUDGE
APPELLEE
REVERSED AND DISMISSED
JOSEPHINE LINKER HART, Judge
Romorious Westbrook was adjudicated a delinquent juvenile in Crittenden County
Circuit Court based upon a finding that he had committed Class B felony residential burglary
and Class C felony criminal mischief. He received twenty-four months’ supervised juvenile
probation and ninety days detention in the Crittenden County Detention Center with forty-five
days suspended. He was also ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution to Farm Bureau Insurance.
He appeals, arguing that there was insufficient evidence corroborating the testimony of his
accomplice, Joseph “Jo Jo” Quinn, as is required by Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-89111 (Repl. 2005). We reverse and dismiss.
While the Deese family was away for two days over the 2007 Christmas holiday,
vandals broke into their home and caused more than $135,000 worth of damage. Joseph
Quinn, a student at Marion High School, confessed to the crime and implicated two others,
Cite as 2009 Ark. App. 723
Anthony Smith and Westbrook. It is not disputed that without Quinn’s testimony, there was
insufficient evidence to support Westbrook’s adjudication. At the conclusion of the hearing,
the trial court made the following findings of fact in support of its conclusion that Westbrook
and Quinn were accomplices:
1) The victim was a school teacher at Marion School District and the walls inside the
house were spray painted in blue and gold, the Marion High School colors;
2) “Marion High School” appeared in many of the spray painted epithets;
3) Testimony from Jo Jo’s mother, Eva Quinn, established that the crime occurred in
the overnight hours of December 26-December 27, when Westbrook spent the night at
Anthony Smith’s home along with Quinn;
4) The presence of a flashlight on the kitchen counter, that the victims testified was not
there when they left their residence, indicating that the crime occurred at night;
5) The amount of time spent in the house was consistent with other individuals assisting
in the destruction;
6) David Anthony Smith, Sr., testified that when the window to his son’s room was
raised, even if the alarm was de-activated, it would “chime.” Quinn testified that the
window chimed when they opened it.
We first consider the law regarding the requirement that accomplice testimony be
corroborated. Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-89-111(e)(1) states in pertinent part:
(A) A conviction or an adjudication of delinquency cannot be had in any case
of felony upon the testimony of an accomplice, including in the juvenile
division of circuit court, unless corroborated by other evidence tending to
connect the defendant or the juvenile with the commission of the offense.
(B) The corroboration is not sufficient if it merely shows that the offense was
committed and the circumstances thereof.
The corroborating evidence need not be sufficient standing alone to sustain the conviction, but
it must, independent from that of the accomplice, tend to connect to a substantial degree the
accused with the commission of the crime. Stephenson v. State, 373 Ark. 134, 282 S.W.3d
-2-
CA09-174
Cite as 2009 Ark. App. 723
772 (2008). The corroborating evidence may be circumstantial so long as it is substantial;
evidence that merely raises a suspicion of guilt is insufficient to corroborate an accomplice's
testimony. Id. The presence of an accused in the proximity of a crime, opportunity, and
association with a person involved in the crime in a manner suggestive of joint participation,
are relevant facts in determining the connection of an accomplice with the crime. Passley v.
State, 323 Ark. 301, 915 S.W.2d 248 (1996).
In arguing that there was insufficient corroboration of Quinn’s testimony, Westbrook
attacks each of the trial court’s findings and asserts that they are insufficient to connect him
with the crime. We find this argument persuasive. When we consider the evidence as it
pertains to the factors listed in Passley, we conclude that the evidence does nothing more than
raise a bare suspicion of guilt.
We first examine the evidence of Westbrook’s proximity to the crime. Eva Quinn’s
testimony placed Quinn in the Smith household as an overnight guest, along with Westbrook,
on the night of December 26-27, and Crittenden County Assessor William E. Eddings, Jr.,
established that the Smith residence and the Deese residence were approximately 1200 feet
apart. We hold that this evidence is not substantial. First, as we shall discuss later at greater
length, there is no conclusive proof that the crime took place during the nighttime hours of
December 26-27. Second, Westbrook’s location during this time was approximately a quarter
of a mile away. We are aware of only a single case, Fort v. State, 52 Ark. 180, 11 S.W. 959
(1889), where sufficient corroboration was found where a perpetrator was located so far
-3-
CA09-174
Cite as 2009 Ark. App. 723
removed from the crime scene. In Fort, the corroborating evidence merely put the perpetrator
in the same town where the crime was committed. However, there were additional factors,
such as the perpetrator’s untruthful denial that he was present in town during the time the
burglary was committed. Conversely, in Pickett v. State, 55 Ark. App. 261, 935 S.W.2d 281
(1996), we held that proof that an alleged accomplice was present on the victim's next-door
neighbor's property some sixty to ninety minutes before the crimes were discovered was
insufficient to corroborate accomplice testimony.
We find the proof no more compelling regarding Westbrook’s opportunity to commit
the crime. David Smith testified that after chiding his son Anthony, Quinn, and Westbrook
for being “too loud” at approximately 12:30 a.m., on December 27, 2007, he had no further
contact with the boys until some six hours later. This evidence established an extremely
narrow time window in which Westbrook could have committed the crime. During this time,
he would have had to travel a quarter of a mile to and from the crime scene, find a tool for
forcing entry into the house, and spend what was obviously a considerable amount of time
vandalizing the property. Moreover, as alluded to previously, there was scant evidence that
the crime actually took place during the brief time that Westbrook had this “opportunity.” We
acknowledge that police found a clock inside the Deese home that was smashed at 3:10 and
the presence of a flashlight on the kitchen counter. It would, however, require rank
speculation to conclude that the clock was smashed on a specific day and at night, as opposed
to 3:10 in the afternoon. We do not believe that the discovery of the flashlight in the kitchen
-4-
CA09-174
Cite as 2009 Ark. App. 723
alleviates any of the necessity to speculate. Every room in the Deese residence was ransacked
and a large amount of their possessions were dislodged from where the Deeses had left them.
Finally, substantial evidence is also lacking with regard to Westbrook’s association
with a person involved in the crime in a manner suggestive of joint participation. We note the
testimony of David Smith, Eva Quinn, Westbrook’s mother Myra Warren, and Andrew
Simmons established that Westbrook was an associate of Quinn, but the nature of that
association was one of being a teammate on the Marion High School football team, and as a
friend of a friend.
While the the extent of the damage—more than $135,000 worth—along with Eva
Quinn’s testimony that Jo Jo was wearing a cast at the time, tends to show that there was more
than one perpetrator involved in the crime, that fact does not tend to establish that Westbrook
was one of the other persons. Likewise, while the presence of epithets that were spray painted
inside the Deese home suggested that the perpetrators were Marion High School students, that
evidence failed to substantially point to Westbrook rather than any number of other students
at Marion or even some other high school. Accordingly, because we have found no substantial
evidence that tends to connect Westbrook with the commission of this crime, we must reverse
and dismiss.
Reversed and dismissed.
PITTMAN and GLOVER, JJ., agree.
-5-
CA09-174
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.