Page:Cole v. State (214 Ark. 387).pdf/7

ARK.] In Roberts v. State, 21 Ark. 183, decided in 1860, in a prosecution under the riot statute previously copied, this court said: "Riot is defined to be a tumultous disturbance of the peace by three or more persons assembling together of their own authority, with an intent mutually to assist one another against any one who shall oppose them in the execution of some enterprise of aprivate nature, and afterward actually executing thesame in a violent and turbulent manner, to the terror of the people, whether the act itself was lawful or unlawful. Whar. Crim. Law 722; 4 Hawk. P.C. chap. 65, § 1; State v. Conolly, 3 Rich. 337."

Section 2-B3 of said Act 193 of 1943 is aimed at the same generic offense as that towards which the riot statute was directed. As we will show in topic II, infra, dealing with the evidence, the defendants here actually participated in the acts of violence denounced in § 2-A,3 although these defendants are now only charged with aiding and encouraging the unlawful assemblage.

In Craig v. State, 195 Ark. 925, 114 S.W.2d 1073 we had before us another conviction under the riot statute (§ 3503, Pope's Digest, supra). In that case a labor dispute existed; and Craig, and at least two others, acting together pursuant to a common purpose, did engage in a riot. We upheld the conviction in that case; and the offense here invloved is of the same type as that in the Craig case.

In Smith and Brown v. State, 207 Ark. 104, 179 S.W.2d 185 the late and beloved Mr. Justice McHaney delivered the opinion of this court, which sustained the constitutionality of Act 193 of 1943, saying:

"No one would seriously contend that force andviolence, or intimidation and coercion, due there to, are within the pale of constitutional protection. And the power to prohibit their exercise is within the police power of the state, acting through its legislature. The state, said Judge Hart, in Huff v. State, 164 Ark. 211, 261 S.W. 654, has the power to determine what acts committed within its limits shall be deemed criminal.