The case concerns Jose Chacon's challenge to the termination of his parental rights to his minor child J.T. in Arkansas dependency-neglect proceedings, where the Department of Human Services knew of his status as the biological father but did not notify him or appoint counsel until shortly before the termination hearing. The Arkansas Court of Appeals declined to address Chacon's due process arguments on appeal, concluding they were not preserved at the circuit court level. The dissenting opinion asserts that counsel's statements at the termination hearing sufficiently raised the constitutional claims regarding lack of notice, information, and counsel while Chacon was incarcerated, and that procedural bars cannot override specific assertions of constitutional rights. The Supreme Court denied review of the Court of Appeals decision.
The case involved petitioner Anthony Jerome Fitzgerald, who filed a pro se motion under Arkansas Rule of Appellate Procedure–Criminal 19(b) seeking copies of 911 call transcripts from his trial attorney, Gregory Neal Robinson, related to his underlying criminal conviction. After the attorney failed to respond to the motion, Fitzgerald filed additional pro se pleadings including a notice of application for judgment, a motion for default judgment seeking to vacate his conviction, and a motion to amend his request to seek a new trial. The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered the attorney to respond within fourteen days addressing whether he possessed the records, their format, and whether they had been provided to Fitzgerald. The court deemed the notice of application moot and denied the motions for default judgment and to amend, reasoning that Rule 19(b) mandates a response from properly served counsel regardless of the motion's perceived merit.
Mo Shay was convicted in a bench trial of possession of methamphetamine after an officer found the drug in his wallet during a pat-down in a closed park. Shay moved to suppress the evidence, arguing the officer lacked reasonable suspicion for the frisk and had neither probable cause nor consent to search the wallet. The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed the conviction and remanded the case, holding that the initial frisk was permissible but the subsequent opening of the wallet exceeded the scope of a weapons search and occurred without consent, as confirmed by audio evidence showing no request for or grant of permission. The court applied Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.4 and related Fourth Amendment principles to conclude the search was unlawful.
In Prince v. Kelley, Carl Prince filed a pro se motion for rule on the clerk that sought to have the Arkansas Supreme Court assume jurisdiction over his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, asserting that no circuit court could accept jurisdiction due to repeated transfers between prison units and that his sentence lacked statutory authorization. The majority disposed of the matter by syllabus entry. The dissenting opinion argues that this approach could impede access to habeas relief and that the court has constitutional and statutory authority under Article 7, section 4 of the Arkansas Constitution and Arkansas Code Annotated § 16-112-102(a)(1) to either take jurisdiction or transfer the petition to the appropriate circuit court, emphasizing the historical importance of the writ of habeas corpus.
This case involves Frederick Pennington's appeal of a resentencing order from the Pulaski County Circuit Court for two counts of aggravated robbery in case No. 60CR-77-1939. Originally sentenced to concurrent life sentences with the possibility of parole in 1978 when aggravated robbery was a Class A felony punishable by five to fifty years or life, Pennington was resentenced to concurrent fifty-year terms. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the resentencing order, explaining that this appeal was not consolidated with related cases and that the issue of consecutive versus concurrent sentences did not arise in this specific case because the new sentences remained concurrent to each other.
The case involves petitioner Tilton Rhodes's pro se motion for a copy of the transcript from his 2006 rape and sexual assault conviction appeal, which he claims he needs due to indigence after his conviction was affirmed. The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Rhodes's former attorney to respond within ten days under Arkansas Rule of Appellate Procedure–Criminal 19, specifying details about possession of the transcript, its format, and whether it was provided to the client. The court reasoned that this mandatory response is required to determine if the transcript should be provided at state expense, regardless of the motion's merits.