Donald Ray Mouse, Jr. v. State of Arkansas

── Donald Ray Mouse, Jr. v. State of Arkansas ── Court: Court of Appeals of Arkansas Date: May 13, 2026 Category: General Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 298 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION II No.CR-23-271 Opinion Delivered May 13, 2026 DONALD RAY MOUSE, JR. APPEAL FROM THE BENTON APPELLANT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 04CR-20-2182] V. HONORABLE BRAD KARREN, STATE OF ARKANSAS JUDGE APPELLEE AFFIRMED BRANDON J. HARRISON, Judge A jury found Donald Ray Mouse guilty of robbery and third-degree battery, and he has appealed his convictions. 1 He contends that the circuit court erred in denying his motions for directed verdict because there was reasonable doubt as to the identification of him as the perpetrator of these crimes. We affirm. In October 2020, the State charged Mouse with one count of robbery and one count of third-degree battery. The State alleged that he committed these crimes by hitting, kicking, and throwing rocks at Thomas Davis and by taking Davis’s bicycle and other belongings. The State later amended the criminal information to charge Mouse as a habitual offender. 1 This is Mouse’s second appeal; his first appeal was filed as a no-merit appeal, which we remanded to settle and supplement the record and ordered rebriefing. Mouse v. State, 2025 Ark. App. 12. 1  The circuit court held a jury trial in September 2022. Pertinent to this appeal, Davis testified that on the night of 14 September 2020, he was outside the Siloam Springs Public Library and was attacked by a tall man with blonde hair. The man threw rocks and a plastic bottle at Davis, then he got on Davis’s bicycle and left. The man quickly returned, however, and demanded Davis’s backpack. Davis set down his backpack so he could defend himself and noticed a second man standing behind him; the second man had dark hair and was about the same height as the blonde man. The blonde man then punched Davis in the nose, breaking his glasses, and continued to hit and kick him multiple times. Afterward, the blonde man picked up the backpack, and he and the second man walked away. The next day, Davis identified Mouse as the perpetrator in a photo lineup, and Davis also identified Mouse at trial. On cross-examination, Davis confirmed that the second male had dark hair and that the police did not show him a photo lineup of white males with dark hair because “he really didn’t do anything” and because he (Davis) didn’t get a good look at him. Defense counsel asked, “Now, these males, they were wearing dark clothes that night; is that right?” Davis responded, “No, I don’t think they was wearing dark clothes. . . . It’s been two years, but I want to say it was greenish maybe. . . . A green jacket or something. Not a jacket, it was a hoodie.” Davis also said that he has “pretty bad eyesight” without his glasses but that he saw the blonde-haired man take his backpack. “[W]hen he quit kicking on me, I looked up and watched what he was doing and he walked right over and grabbed my backpack because the other guy was kind of over at the corner of the library. . . . It wasn’t the dark- haired guy that grabbed my backpack.” Davis denied that he could not see at all without 2 his glasses and said by way of analogy, “I can’t read that sign back there but I can tell you it’s got red on it.” Detective Ron Coble interviewed Mouse after his arrest on September 17, three days after the incident, and Mouse told Coble that he had been staying with his sister, Lavonna French, and her boyfriend, Travis Harris. French’s apartment is very close to the library. Mouse said that he did not remember getting into a fight with a m