Justia Arkansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

After a jury trial, Petitioner was found guilty of attempted rape and two counts of sexual assault in the second degree. The convictions were affirmed on appeal. Petitioner later filed a pro se petition for postconviction relief, which the circuit court denied as untimely. Petitioner did not appeal, but rather, sought leave to proceed with a belated appeal, contending that his underlying petition was not timely filed because he did not receive a copy of the mandate. The Supreme Court denied Petitioner’s motion for belated appeal on the basis that Petitioner did not show good cause for his failure to timely file a notice of appeal. View "Bean v. State" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of manufacture of a controlled substance, simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms, possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Appellant later filed in the Hot Spring County Circuit Court, the county in which he was incarcerated, a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus. The circuit court dismissed the petition on the merits. Appellant appealed. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, as the Hot Spring County Circuit Court could no longer grant the relief requested by Appellant because Appellant was no longer incarcerated in a facility within that county. View "Tyson v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was found guilty of aggravated robbery and theft of property. The total sentence imposed was life imprisonment. On appeal, Appellant argued that the trial court erred in denying his directed-verdict motions challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support the aggravated robbery and theft-of-property charges. Specifically, Appellant contended, among other things, that the identification evidence was “shaky" and that there was no proof that he was involved in the crimes. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions, and therefore, the circuit court did not err in denying Appellant’s directed-verdict motions. View "Turner v. State" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of the offense of failure to appear and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. On appeal, Appellant argued that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction because he had not yet been charged with a crime when he failed to appear, and therefore, the circuit court erred in denying his motion for a directed verdict. The Supreme Court reversed and dismissed Appellant’s conviction and sentence, holding that the circuit court erred in denying Appellant’s motion for a directed verdict because Appellant could not be convicted of the offense of felony failure to appear when he had not yet been charged with any criminal offense. View "Thompson v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was found guilty of the rape of twenty-three-year-old J.H., who was incapable of consent by virtue of her mental age of six or seven years. Appellant was sentenced to 840 months’ imprisonment. Appellant subsequently filed a pro se petition for postconviction relief, alleging that he was afforded ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. The trial court denied the petition after a hearing. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant failed to establish that his counsel’s performance was deficient in any respect. View "Stewart v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of capital murder, aggravated residential burglary, kidnapping, and rape. Appellant was sentenced to life without parole for the capital murder conviction. On appeal, Appellant argued that the circuit court erred in denying his objection to the State’s use of peremptory challenges in violation of Batson v. Kentucky. Specifically, Appellant claimed that there was purposeful discrimination in that six of the eight strikes used by the State were strikes of black potential jurors, which resulted in Appellant, an African American, being tried by an all-white jury. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the circuit court did not clearly err in denying Appellant’s Batson challenge. View "McMiller v. State" on Justia Law

In 1994, Appellant was found guilty in two separate cases of capital murder and first-degree murder. Appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment for the capital-murder conviction. In 2012, Appellant filed a pleading that the circuit court treated as a petition for writ of habeas corpus, raising allegations of, inter alia, prosecutorial and police misconduct, due process violations, juror bias, and actual innocence. The circuit court denied relief. The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s order of dismissal, holding that there was no basis for a finding that a writ of habeas corpus should issue. View "Hill v. State" on Justia Law

Petitioner, an inmate, filed a pro se motion to dismiss and vacate a sentence. The circuit court denied the motion. Petitioner subsequently filed a timely notice of appeal and tendered a partial record to the Supreme Court with a motion for belated appeal, asserting that the record was not timely tendered because the circuit court allegedly declined to prepare the record until Petitioner’s status as an indigent person was certified by the court. The Court treated the motion for belated appeal as a motion for rule on clerk and denied the motion, holding that Petitioner failed to establish good cause for the procedural default. View "Hall v. State" on Justia Law

Appellant pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance. The State later conceded that the sentence was illegal on its face inasmuch as the sentence imposed for each of the two offenses exceeded the statutory range. Therefore, the pleas were set aside and the judgment-and-commitment order was vacated. Thereafter, Appellant pleaded guilty to the two charges and was sentenced to 300-month sentence and a 180-month suspended sentence, to be served consecutive to the 300-month sentence. Appellant subsequently filed a pro se motion to correct illegal sentence or reduction of sentence. The trial court denied the relief sought. The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s order but modified the suspended sentence to run concurrently with the sentence of 300 months’ imprisonment. View "Gray v. State" on Justia Law

Appellant, by and through his attorney, John Irwin, filed a motion for rule on clerk and a motion to be relieved as counsel. Irwin, a full-time, state-salaried public defender, stated in his motion for rule on clerk that the clerk refused to file the untimely record because of Irwin’s failure to follow the Arkansas Rules of Appellate Procedure-Criminal. The Supreme Court granted the motion for rule on clerk, as Irwin candidly admitted fault for the failure to perfect the appeal, and granted the motion to be relieved as counsel, as Irwin was not eligible for compensation on appeal. View "Childers v. State" on Justia Law