Appeal from Searcy Circuit Court; Garner Fraser, Judge; affirmed.
Mills & Mills and Shonse & Shouse, for appellant.
Jack Holt, Attorney General and Jno. P. Streepey, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Holt, J. On information charging that appellant, Joe Johnson, "did unlawfully, willfully and publicly exhibit contempt for the flag of the United States," he was tried, convicted and his punishment assessed at "a fine of $50 and imprisonment in the county jail for a period of 24 hours." For reversal here, appellant alleges that the evidence was not sufficient to warrant his conviction and that the trial court erred in refusing to so instruct the jury in accordance with instruction No. 1 requested by appellant.
Section 2941 of Pope's Digest, upon which the information was base d, provides in part "Whoever . . . shall in any manner . . . or by word or act publicly exhibit contempt for the flag . . . of the United States . . . shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $100, or imprisonment for not more than thirty days, or both."
The evidence, upon which the jury found appellant guilty, is to the following effect:
Mrs. Nell Cooper was in charge of the Welfare Commissary at Marshall, Arkansas, when appellant came to procure commodities for himself, his wife and eight children. We quote the following from her testimony: "He came in the commissary on the first day of the period, and we had quite a crowd in there, and I had been told that he was drawing for more people than he really had in family, and also that he wouldn't salute the American flag, and I first asked him about a rumor that he was drawing for more than he had members in his family, and he says, 'That is just talk, I do have that many.' I thought it was hardly possible he would say he had more than he had, and I didn't give much faith to the rumor.
