Davis v. State

558 S.W.3d 366
Supreme Court of Arkansas·Decided October 18, 2018·No. No. CR-17-120·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

JOHN DAN KEMP, Chief Justice

Following his conviction on charges of manslaughter, manufacture of a controlled substance (marijuana), abuse of a corpse, and tampering with physical evidence, which resulted from a negotiated plea of nolo contendere, appellant Morris Dean Davis filed a petition in the trial court seeking a writ of error coram nobis. Davis alleged in his petition that he was coerced into entering the plea because he was given misleading information about the manslaughter charge and that he was insane and not competent to enter the plea. After a hearing on the petition, the trial court denied coram nobis relief, finding that Davis's claims as developed in the hearing were largely ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, which as such were untimely; that Davis had presented no credible evidence of coercion or insanity at the time he entered his plea; and that he failed to demonstrate diligence in pursuing at least one of his claims. The trial court's findings are well supported by the record, and it did not abuse its discretion by declining to issue the writ. Accordingly, we affirm.

Davis was initially charged with first-degree murder rather than manslaughter, and the list of original charges included an additional allegation of a sentencing enhancement for the use of a firearm that was not pursued under the negotiated plea. As set out in the charging information, the State alleged that Davis had fatally shot his girlfriend, Lisa Davis, in the face with a rifle. The court ordered a mental-health evaluation of Davis, and the report, which was filed about two years before Davis entered his plea, found that Davis was capable of understanding the proceedings and assisting counsel, that he did not present with evidence of a mental disease or defect, and that he could both appreciate the criminality of his actions *368and conform his behavior to the requirements of the law.

The trial court conducted two plea hearings, declining to accept Davis's no-contest plea to the charges at the first hearing. The court accepted the plea during the second hearing. During both hearings, Davis's account of what had happened was consistent with his version of events as described in the mental-health report. Davis maintained that Lisa had committed suicide, shooting herself with the rifle, but that he had not called the police or disclosed her death at the time and had only told the police about the suicide-initially denying her death and saying that Lisa had left him-when a friend he had confided in six weeks after her death went to the police. He admitted that he had left the rifle where Lisa had found it, knowing that she had attempted suicide in the past; that he had cleaned up the scene and buried Lisa a few days after her death, naked and face down in a shallow grave in the barn; and that he had covered the grave with concrete and a stack of lumber. The State contended during the plea hearing that it could prove, at a minimum, that Davis had caused Lisa to commit suicide or recklessly caused her death. Davis affirmed during the final plea hearing that no one had threatened or coerced him into changing his plea.

After Davis filed his coram nobis petition, the trial court held a hearing and heard testimony from Davis, a witness who knew the couple and had seen Lisa drunk on a number of occasions, and Davis's trial attorney. Davis indicated in his testimony that his issues with the plea were limited to the manslaughter charge, that he should have been provided a "post-trial hearing" concerning whether he was coerced or rational enough to enter the plea, that he was convicted under a different subsection of the manslaughter statute than what he believed he had agreed to, that his attorney had used a cell phone to show Davis a copy of the statute that contained a subsection that did not exist in the applicable manslaughter statute, and that he had not been diagnosed with any behavioral disorder. Trial counsel testified that he had hired a forensics expert to assist in the case; that, after consultation with that expert, he concluded that Davis's actions in destroying some evidence, cleaning up the crime scene, burying the body, and placing an ad for a woman companion after Lisa's disappearance, would have made it extremely difficult to defend a murder charge; that the earlier parole eligibility for manslaughter made the plea offer more attractive than a conviction on a murder charge, considering Davis's age; that Davis had been adamant that he would not enter a plea or admit guilt to murder because of some pending civil matters concerning his property; that Davis did not show signs of emotional distress at the time of the plea hearings that would have merited another evaluation of his mental health; and that his recollection of showing Davis the manslaughter statute on his phone included providing an explanation of the section listed on the judgment and that the statute was the correct one and did not include the section that Davis insisted had been shown to him.

Davis correctly pursued the writ in the trial court. When the judgment or conviction was entered on a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, the petition for writ of error coram nobis is filed directly with the circuit court. Thacker v. State , 2016 Ark. 350, 500 S.W.3d 736. The standard of review of an order entered by the trial court on a petition for writ of error coram nobis is whether the trial court abused its discretion in granting or denying the writ. Smith v. State , 2017 Ark. 236, 523 S.W.3d 354. An abuse of discretion occurs when the court *369acts arbitrarily or groundlessly. Id. The trial court's findings of fact, on which it bases its decision to grant or deny the petition for writ of error coram nobis, will not be reversed on appeal unless they are clearly erroneous or clearly against the preponderance of the evidence. Id. There is no abuse of discretion in the denial of error coram nobis relief when the claims in the petition are groundless. Id.

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Davis v. State, 558 S.W.3d 366 (Ark. 2018).

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