Justia Arkansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Appellant pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and commercial burglary and was sentenced to an aggregate term of 240 months’ imprisonment. The court of appeals affirmed the sentence. Appellant subsequently filed a pro se petition for postconviction relief, asserting that his counsel provided ineffective assistance at trial and on direct appeal. The petition was denied. Appellant appealed and filed a motion to have his brief-in-chief duplicated at public expense. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and mooted the motion, holding that Appellant’s allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel were not sufficient to establish that he was entitled to postconviction relief. View "Thomas v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial in 1977, Appellant was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Appellant was sixteen years old at the time of the offense. In 2013, Appellant filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus, asserting that, in accordance with Miller v. Alabama, his life sentence was invalid on its face because the sentencer did not hold a hearing to consider mitigating factors relating to his youth before imposing the maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The petition was denied. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Miller was inapplicable to Appellant’s case because Appellant’s 1977 sentence to life imprisonment for first-degree murder was not mandatory and the sentencer was permitted to consider sentencing-related mitigating evidence. View "Smith v. State" on Justia Law

After the Pulaski County Humane Society (PCHS) seized many dogs from Defendant’s premises, Defendant was charged with three felony counts of aggravated cruelty to animals and ten misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals for keeping her dogs without access to shade in excessively hot temperatures. The jury found Defendant guilty of five misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals. The circuit court sentenced Defendant to 100 hours of community service and payment of a $500 fine. In a supplemental order, the court ordered Defendant to pay costs to PCHS of $6,425 and divested Defendant of custody of the five dogs that she had been convicted of abusing. Defendant appealed, arguing, inter alia, that the circuit court erred in denying her motion to suppress the evidence related to the seizure of the dogs. The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence but dismissed Defendant’s appeal and the State’s cross-appeal of the circuit court’s supplemental order, holding (1) the circuit court did not clearly err in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress; but (2) the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to decide the State’s petition for divestment and Defendant’s petition for custody of the dogs. View "Nance v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and sentenced, as a habitual offender, to life imprisonment. After the Supreme Court affirmed on appeal, Appellant filed a petition for postconviction relief pursuant to Ark. R. Crim. P. 37, alleging that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance. The circuit court denied relief without a hearing. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the circuit court erred (1) in relying on email correspondence that was attached to the prosecutor’s response to Appellant’s petition and was not part of the file, record, or petition; and (2) in denying Appellant’s petition in the absence of a hearing because the files and records did not conclusively show that Appellant was entitled to no relief. View "Guevara v. State" on Justia Law

On December 6, 2011, Appellant was found to have violated the terms of his probation and was sentenced to 300 months’ imprisonment in the Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC) to run concurrently with a sentence imposed in a federal case. The order stated that Appellant was released into the custody of the United States Marshall to serve the federal sentence. On December 15, 2011, Appellant pled guilty to rape, sexual assault in the second degree, and theft of property. In 2013, Appellant filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Lincoln County Circuit Court on the grounds that, despite the December 6, 2011 order placing him in the custody of the United States Marshall, he had been returned to the ADC on the Arkansas judgments. The circuit court denied the petition. The Supreme Court dismissed Appellant’s appeal, holding that Appellant failed to meet his burden of demonstrating a basis for a writ of habeas corpus to issue. View "Fortier v. Hobbs" on Justia Law

Appellant’s probation was revoked for his convictions on drug-related charges in two cases. Appellant pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to terms of imprisonment for each case. Appellant later filed two petitions for postconviction relief under Ark. R. Crim. P. 37.1. The trial court denied relief based on Appellant’s failure to timely file his petition for postconviction relief. Appellant appealed from the two orders. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of the denial of relief on Appellant’s postconviction claims because Appellant was no longer incarcerated for the judgments reflecting the convictions that were at issue. View "Criswell v. State" on Justia Law

In 2013, the State filed a petition to revoke Appellant’s suspended sentences from three previous convictions, a felony hot-check conviction, a second-degree forgery conviction, and a possession of drug paraphernalia conviction. The circuit court revoked Appellant’s suspended sentences on each charge and imposed a sentence of fourteen years’ imprisonment with an additional eight years’ suspended imposition of sentence, to run consecutively. Appellant appealed, contending that the fourteen-year sentence imposed upon his revocation was illegal. The Supreme Court affirmed the fourteen-year term of imprisonment and modified the two suspended sentences to run concurrently with each other and with the term of imprisonment, holding (1) Appellant’s sentences for second-degree forgery and possession of drug paraphernalia were illegal to the extent the circuit court ordered multiple periods of suspension to run consecutively rather than concurrently; and (2) Appellant’s suspended sentences on those same two charges were illegal to the extent that they ran consecutively to the imprisonment imposed for Appellant’s felony hot-check conviction. View "Walden v. State" on Justia Law

Appellant, in inmate incarcerated in the Arkansas Department of Correction (“ADC”), filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the circuit court seeking a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief against the ADC and three of its employees in their official capacities. In his petition, Appellant claimed that Appellees acted maliciously and arbitrarily in undertaking a disciplinary action against Appellant. The circuit court dismissed the petition, concluding that the petition did not set forth facts sufficient to state a claim for relief. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the petition. View "Swanigan v. Ark. Dep't of Corr." on Justia Law

Dwayne Cherry was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and theft by receiving. Cherry filed a motion to suppress contraband discovered on his person after a traffic stop. The circuit court granted the motion, concluding that the police lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct a patdown search and that Cherry did not consent to the search of the interior of his clothing. The State appealed, arguing that the circuit court erred by concluding that consent does not satisfy the Fourth Amendment and, consequently, adding reasonable suspicion as a prerequisite to a valid consent to search under Ark. R. Crim. P. 11. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that because the appeal involved only disputed factual findings, it was not a proper State appeal. View "State v. Cherry" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of rape and sentenced as a habitual offender to life imprisonment without parole. The Supreme Court affirmed. Defendant subsequently filed a pro se for postconviction relief. The trial court denied the petition on August 22, 2013. The Supreme Court dismissed Defendant’s appeal and also denied a motion that Defendant filed to reinvest jurisdiction in the trial court to consider some issues that he claimed had not been addressed by the trial court in the August 22, 2013 order. On February 4, 2014, Defendant filed a motion seeking leave to proceed with a belated appeal of the October 4, 2013 order that had denied the motions for a ruling on certain issues and the motion to set aside the original order. The Supreme Court denied the motion, holding that Defendant did not state good cause for his failure to file a timely amended notice of appeal. View "Craigg v. State" on Justia Law