Jackie L. Williams v. Dexter Payne, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction

2021 Ark. 212

• Court: Supreme Court of Arkansas
• Decided: November 12, 2021
• Status: Published

Opinion

Cite as 2021 Ark. 212 SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS No. CV-21-147

Opinion Delivered: November 12, 2021 JACKIE L. WILLIAMS APPELLANT PRO SE APPEAL FROM THE JEFFERSON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT V. [NO. 35CV-20-670]

DEXTER PAYNE, DIRECTOR, HONORABLE JODI RAINES ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF DENNIS, JUDGE CORRECTION APPELLEE AFFIRMED.

SHAWN A. WOMACK, Associate Justice

Appellant Jackie L. Williams appeals the circuit court’s dismissal of his fourth pro se

petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Williams, who is incarcerated in the county where he

filed his petition, alleged that he was charged by information with three separate counts of

rape under the same docket number but was wrongfully tried in three separate trials.

Williams contends that, following his first trial and conviction for rape, the circuit court

lacked jurisdiction to convict him of the remaining counts of rape. According to Williams,

after the first conviction, his sentence had been executed, and the court lost jurisdiction to

modify or amend the original sentence. Williams claims that once he filed the notice of

appeal for his first conviction, the circuit court did not have jurisdiction to proceed with

the other trials. Williams further contended that his conviction of three counts of rape in

separate trials violated the prohibition against double jeopardy. We are unpersuaded by

Williams’s claims and affirm the circuit court’s dismissal of his petition. I. Background

Williams raped three women in 1994 and was later charged with three separate

counts of rape. The three charges were severed and tried separately. A jury convicted

Williams of rape on count two, and he was sentenced as a habitual offender to twenty-five

years’ or 300 months’ imprisonment. The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed. Williams v.

State, CR-96-725 (Ark. App. Apr. 2, 1997) (unpublished). Shortly thereafter, another jury

convicted Williams of rape for count three, and he was sentenced as a habitual offender to

life imprisonment. We affirmed that conviction on January 29, 1998. Williams v. State, 331

Ark. 263, 962 S.W.2d 329 (1998). In his final trial on count one, a jury again found Williams

guilty of rape, he was sentenced to life imprisonment as a habitual offender, and a sentence

was imposed for all three counts to run consecutively, which we upheld. Williams v. State,

CR-97-1499 (Ark. May 4, 2000) (unpublished per curiam).

Williams subsequently filed three claims for habeas relief, all of which the circuit

court denied. This court affirmed those denials on appeal.1 Williams raised a double jeopardy

claim in his third habeas petition, but we concluded that Williams’s claim was not cognizable

in a habeas proceeding because it did not implicate the facial validity of the judgment.

Williams v. Kelley, 2017 Ark. 200, 521 S.W.3d 104. Moreover, we determined that the

double jeopardy claim was inconsistent with Williams’s assertion that the three rapes were

1 The citations to the first two habeas petitions wherein this court affirmed the denial of that relief are as follows: Williams v. Norris, CV-03-1401 (Ark. March 31, 2005) (unpublished per curiam); Williams v. Norris, CR-98-1027 (Ark. Jan. 20, 2000) (unpublished per curiam).

2 separate, unrelated offenses—it is not unconstitutional to impose separate punishments for

three distinct crimes. Id.

II. Standard of Review

We will uphold a circuit court’s decision on a petition for writ of habeas corpus

unless it is clearly erroneous. Hobbs v. Gordon, 2014 Ark. 225, 434 S.W.3d 364. A decision

is clearly erroneous when, although there is evidence to support it, the appellate court is left

with the definite and firm conviction that the circuit court made a mistake. Id.

III. Nature of the Writ

A writ of habeas corpus is proper when a conviction is invalid on its face or when a

circuit court lacks jurisdiction over the cause. Philyaw v. Kelley, 2015 Ark. 465, 477 S.W.3d

503. A circuit court has subject-matter jurisdiction to hear and determine cases involving

violations of criminal statutes. Baker v. Norris, 369 Ark. 405, 255 S.W.3d 466 (2007). A

habeas petitioner who does not allege his actual innocence under Act 1780 of 2001 must

plead either the facial invalidity of the judgment or the lack of jurisdiction by the circuit

court and make a showing, by affidavit or other evidence, of probable cause to believe that

the petitioner is being illegally detained. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-112-103(a)(1) (Repl. 2016).

Unless the petitioner can show that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction or that the

commitment order was invalid on its face, there is no basis for relief under a writ of habeas

corpus. Fields v. Hobbs, 2013 Ark. 416.

IV. Claims for Relief

Williams contended both in the circuit court and on appeal that he was erroneously

charged by a “multiplicity information” that contained separate charges under a single

3 docket number. But the charges were severed, and the granting of a motion for severance

does not bar a subsequent trial of that defendant on the severed offenses. See Ark. R. Crim.

P. 22.1(d) (1995). Williams cites no authority for his argument that separate charges

stemming from a single information void both the conviction and the sentences when the

charges are subsequently severed and tried separately. This court will not consider an

argument if the appellant makes no convincing argument or fails to cite authority to support

it. Rea v. Kelley, 2019 Ark. 339, 588 S.W.3d 715.

Williams’s reliance on Nelson v. State for the proposition that the circuit court loses

jurisdiction to modify the executed sentence once the execution of the sentence has begun

is unavailing. 284 Ark. 156, 680 S.W.2d 91 (1984). Nelson and other analogous cases

concern a single sentence for a single offense and are not applicable to separate convictions

and sentences for three separate offenses. Furthermore, Williams cites no authority for his

contention that the circuit court lost jurisdiction to conduct trials for separate offenses after

he appealed his first conviction to the court of appeals. Rea, 2019 Ark. 339, 588 S.W.3d

715. Williams fails to demonstrate that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to hear and

determine cases that involved separate offense for the crimes of rape. Baker, 369 Ark. 405,

255 S.W.3d 466.

As this court interprets it, the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine2 bars a petitioner from

raising the same arguments that he has raised in previous petitions, without pleading

additional facts to support his argument. Anderson v. Payne, 2021 Ark. 44. Repeating the

2 This is not the original understanding of the term, which concerns the failure to raise arguments in prior petitions. What this court calls the “abuse-of-the-writ doctrine,” is more commonly known as the “successive-writ doctrine.”

4 same claim represents an abuse of the writ, and a circuit court does not clearly err when it

denies such claims. Id. As stated above, Williams raised the same double jeopardy claim in

his third petition for habeas relief, which this court rejected. Williams, 2017 Ark. 200, 521

S.W.3d 104. Williams’s double jeopardy claim in his current habeas petition is an abuse of

the writ, and the circuit court properly denied and dismissed it.

Affirmed.

Jackie L. Williams, pro se appellant.

Leslie Rutledge, Att’y Gen., by: Adam Jackson, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.