Justia Arkansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Petitioner Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company petitioned for a writ of prohibition with the Supreme Court, arguing the circuit court did not have jurisdiction after ninety days to set aside its previous order in this case. This matter stemmed from a motorcycle accident in which Stuart Parsons was injured with an uninsured driver. Parsons had uninsured-motorist coverage with Farm Bureau. He made a claim against that coverage, and signed a release allowing farm bureau to obtain his medical bills, and received a personal-injury protection payment. Parsons' medical bills exceeded the policy limit. Farm Bureau them filed a complaint for interpleader, requesting the circuit court disburse its uninsured-motorist limits. At that time, no other party had filed a lien nor claimed any interest in the policy proceeds. Acting pro se, Parsons answered and requested his policy be paid to him. The circuit court ordered Farm Bureau to deposit the funds into the court's registry and to disburse the money accordingly. Then Parsons filed a counterclaim seeking a statutory penalty, interst and attorney's dees, and to dismiss Farm Bureau's interpleader. After a hearing, the circuit court vacated an earlier order thereby allowing Parsons to proceed with his counterclaims against Farm Bureau. Farm Bureau then filed for a writ of prohibition, arguing the circuit court had no jurisdiction to set aside the order after ninety days from entry of the order. The Supreme Court considered Farm Bureau's petition for a writ of prohibition as a request for a writ of certiorari, and found that Farm Bureau had another adequate remedy. As such, the Court denied Farm Bureau's petition for certiorari, and dismissed the petition for the writ of prohibition as moot. View "S. Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co. v. Parsons" on Justia Law

A circuit court affirmed an administrative decision from the Arkansas Department of Human Serices Office of Appeals and Hearings which placed Appellant Jose Marrufo on the Arkansas Child Maltreatment Central Registry. On appeal, Appellant raised two issues: (1) because the Department failed to timely conduct an administrative hearing within the statutory time frame (180 days), the proceedings against him should have been dismissed; and (2) the administrative law judge erred in failing to consider his affirmative defense to placement on the Registry. Finding no error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Marrufo v. Ark. Dep't of Human Servs." on Justia Law

Appellant Earl Maxwell entered a negotiated guilty plea to two counts of delivery of methamphetamine, two counts of possession with intent to deliver, and one count of possessing drug paraphernalia. He was given a 480-month sentence. Appellant filed a pro se petition for the writ of habeas corpus, which was denied. Finding no error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Maxwell v. Hobbs" on Justia Law

Appellant Dellemond Cunningham was found guilty of being an accomplice to aggravated robbery, theft of property, and of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in addition to intimidating a witness. He received a 444-month sentence. He appealed the witness-intimidation conviction in a pro se application for post-conviction relief, which was denied by the circuit court. Finding no error, the Supreme Court affirmed denial of relief. View "Cuningham v. Arkansas" on Justia Law

Appellant Lloyal Bryant was convicted of rape and second-degree sexual assault. He received an aggregate life sentence plus forty years'. He filed pro se a petition for post-conviction relief, which was ultimately denied. Finding no error in the circuit court's denial of relief, the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. View "Bryant v. Arkansas" on Justia Law

Appellant Ronald McClure entered a negotiated guilty plea to first-degree murder. He received a 540-month sentence. Appellant pro se filed a petition for the writ of error coram nobis, alleging that because of his trial counsel's failure to investigate and properly advise him of the ramifications of the plea bargain, he was coerced into entering that plea. The circuit court denied appellant's request, finding appellant did not act diligently in filing his petition nine years after the judgment was entered, and that he failed to prove the existence of some fact not known at trial that would have prevented entry of that judgment. Appellant appealed the circuit court's decision. Finding no error or abuse of discretion in the circuit court's decision, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "McClure v. Arkansas" on Justia Law

Appellant Rusty Meek pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine and hydrocodone) with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to use. He was sentenced as a habitual offender and received a 240-month sentence with an additional 120-month suspended imposition of sentence. Appellant appealed pro se to the circuit court. The circuit court denied the petition and motion for production of the trial transcript at public expense. Appellant then appealed that denial, but did not tender the proper notice to the Supreme Court. He then filed a belated pro se motion for appeal. Because the notice of appeal was timely, the Supreme Court treated the motion as a motion for rule on clerk to perfect the appeal rather than as a motion for a belated appeal. Finding that Appellant could not prevail on his original motion, the Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's decision to dismiss Appellant's petition. View "Meek v. Arkansas" on Justia Law

The circuit court found no merit to defendant Frank Watts, II's pro se petition for the writ of habeas corpus and dismissed it. Defendant appealed that decision. Finding no clear error to the circuit court's decision, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Watts v. Arkansas" on Justia Law

After a bench trial, Defendant was convicted of rape. Defendant subsequently filed a petition for postconviction relief, alleging that he was afforded ineffective assistance of counsel. The circuit court denied the petition. Defendant appealed and filed motions for an extension of time to file his brief-in-chief and for a copy of the record on appeal. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and declared the motions moot, holding that Defendant failed to provide facts affirmatively supporting the claims that his counsel's conduct prejudiced him under the standards set out in Strickland v. Washington. View "Stevenson v. State" on Justia Law

In 1994, Defendant pled guilty to attempted rape and to violation of a minor. Defendant committed the offenses in 1992 or 1993. Defendant was sentenced to concurrent terms of twenty years' imprisonment for the attempted rape charge. In 2010, Defendant filed a pro se petition to correct an illegal sentence, arguing that his twenty-year sentence amounted to an ex-post-facto violation because the court applied the transfer-eligibility statute, which became effective in 1994, to his sentence. Specifically, Defendant alleged that the parole-eligibility statute in effect at the time of the commission of the crime should be applied to his sentence. The circuit court denied Defendant's petition. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that because Appellant's petition was untimely, the circuit court did not err in denying the petition. View "Hodges v. State" on Justia Law