Jonathan Walker v. State of Arkansas

Opinion

Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 366 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION I

No. CR-25-17

Opinion Delivered August 19, 2026

JONATHAN WALKER APPEAL FROM THE CLARK COUNTY APPELLANT CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 10CR-20-107]

V.

HONORABLE BLAKE BATSON, JUDGE STATE OF ARKANSAS APPELLEE AFFIRMED

KENNETH S. HIXSON, Judge

Appellant Jonathan Walker appeals from the circuit court’s order that dismissed his petition for postconviction relief filed pursuant to Rule 37 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure and also denied Walker’s motion to file an amended and enlarged petition. The circuit court dismissed Walker’s petition because it did not conform with the line and margin requirements of Rule 37.1(b). We affirm.

Walker was convicted by a jury of thirty counts of distributing, possessing, or viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child and was sentenced as a habitual offender to thirty consecutive fifteen-year prison terms. Walker appealed from his convictions, raising seven arguments, and we affirmed his convictions on direct appeal. See Walker v. State, 2023 Ark. App. 295, 669 S.W.3d 243.

On November 20, 2023, Walker filed in the circuit court a timely pro se petition for postconviction relief under Rule 37 making several claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Walker’s original petition was ten pages in length.1 On December 15, 2023, Walker filed a motion for leave to file an amended and enlarged Rule 37 petition. On May 17, 2024, Walker filed a second motion for leave to file an amended and enlarged Rule 37 petition, and he also filed a twenty-three-page amended petition on the same day.

On July 30, 2024, the State filed a motion to dismiss Walker’s Rule 37 petition. In its motion, the State asserted that Walker’s original Rule 37 petition exceeded the thirty-line- per-page limit of Rule 37.1(b) on pages 3, 4, and 6.

In response to the State’s motion to dismiss—on August 5, 2024—Walker filed a third motion to file an amended and enlarged Rule 37 petition. In this motion, Walker withdrew his previous motions for leave to file an amended and enlarged Rule 37 petition. Also on August 5, 2024, Walker filed an amended and enlarged Rule 37 petition making several claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Although this amended petition met the ten-page requirement, it again failed to meet the margin requirements of Rule 37.1(b).

On September 4, 2024, the circuit court held a hearing on Walker’s August 5, 2024 motion to file an amended and enlarged Rule 37 petition. At the hearing, the State noted that neither Walker’s original Rule 37 petition nor his proposed amended Rule 37 petition

1 As will be discussed, infra, although Walker’s petition met the ten-page requirement of Rule 37.1(b), it failed to meet the line and margin limits of the rule.

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were in compliance with Rule 37.1(b). The circuit court stated that it would take these procedural matters under advisement.

On September 25, 2024, the circuit court entered an order dismissing Walker’s Rule 37 petition and denying his motion to file an amended and enlarged petition. The circuit court found that neither petition conformed with the requirements of Rule 37.1(b). Specifically, the circuit court found that although the original petition was ten pages in length, pages 3, 4, and 6 all exceeded the thirty-line-per-page requirement.2 The circuit court found further that the original petition was deficient because these three pages violated the two-inch upper and lower margin requirement, and all pages violated the one-and-a-half inch left and right margin requirement. The circuit court also found that Walker’s proposed amended and enlarged petition violated the requirements of Rule 37.1(b) because all the pages therein violated the one-and-a-half inch left and right margin requirement. The circuit court found further that Walker failed to set forth a legitimate ground or justification for the enlarged petition. For these reasons, Walker’s petitions were dismissed.

On appeal from the circuit court’s order, Walker argues that the circuit court abused its discretion in dismissing his Rule 37 petition and in not granting him leave to file the amended petition. Walker does not dispute that neither petition conformed with all the requirements of Rule 37.1(b). However, he notes that Rule 37.1(b) is discretionary and

2 Walker’s original Rule 37 petition contained thirty-two lines on page 3, thirty-four lines on page 4, and thirty-four lines on page 6. All the other pages contained exactly thirty lines each.

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provides only that the court may dismiss a petition that fails to comply with this subsection. Walker states that, being without counsel and a prison inmate, he was at a disadvantage in following the technical requirements of the rule, and he made a good-faith effort to comply with the margin rules.

Rule 37.1(b) provides:

The petition shall state in concise, nonrepetitive, factually specific language, the grounds upon which it is based. The petition, whether handwritten or typed, shall be clearly legible, and shall not exceed ten pages of thirty lines per page and fifteen words per line, with left and right margins of at least one and one-half inches and upper and lower margins of at least two inches. The circuit court or appellate court may dismiss any petition that fails to comply with this subsection.

Ark. R. Crim. P. 37.1(b) (emphasis added).

The failure to comply with Rule 37.1(b) is not a jurisdictional defect, and the circuit court may rule on a petition that does not conform to the Rule, but the court is not required to do so. Murphy v. State, 2022 Ark. App. 109. When a petitioner timely files a verified petition that does not comply with Rule 37.1(b), the circuit court has the discretion to act on the merits of the petition, dismiss it without prejudice to filing a petition that conforms to Rule 37.1(b), or dismiss the petition. Smith v. State, 2015 Ark. 23, 454 S.W.3d 219 (per curiam). Although there is no constitutional right to a postconviction proceeding, when a state undertakes to provide collateral relief, due process requires only that the proceeding be fundamentally fair. Davis v. State, 2010 Ark. 366 (per curiam). The fundamental requirement of due process is the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. Id. Due process does not require courts to provide an unlimited

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opportunity to present postconviction claims or prevent a court from establishing limits on the number of pages in a petition. Washington v. State, 308 Ark. 322, 823 S.W.2d 900 (1992). The supreme court has held that the rule limiting petitions to ten pages is an entirely reasonable restriction on petitioners seeking postconviction relief. Adams v. State, 2013 Ark. 174, 427 S.W.3d 63.

A petitioner under Rule 37.1 may demonstrate that he cannot adequately present his claims to the court in only ten pages and may request to file a petition longer than ten pages, but the overlength petition may be filed only with the permission of the circuit court. Murry v. State, 2011 Ark. 343 (per curiam). If a petitioner does not receive permission to file an overlength petition, the petitioner is obliged to proceed in accordance with our rules. Id. If the petitioner chooses not to do so, the petitioner must bear the consequences of his decision to submit an overlength petition. Id. When the circuit court dismisses a petition for its overlength, we review that decision for an abuse of discretion. Sanders v. State, 352 Ark. 16, 98 S.W.3d 35 (2003).

In the present case, the content of Walker’s Rule 37 petition was overlength because, although it did not exceed the ten-page limitation of Rule 37.1(b), it exceeded the thirty-line- per-page limitation on several of the pages and failed to conform with the margin requirements. Walker chose to file a petition that did not comply with the rule, and he must bear the consequences of that decision. See Murphy, supra. Rule 37.1(b) clearly allows a circuit court to dismiss a nonconforming petition, stating, “The circuit court or appellate court may dismiss any petition that fails to comply with this subsection.” Accordingly, we

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hold that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing Walker’s Rule 37 petition. See Badger v. State, 2021 Ark. App. 246, 626 S.W.3d 447 (affirming the dismissal of a Rule 37 petition on the basis of margin deficiencies).

We hold further that the circuit court did not err in denying Walker’s motion to file an enlarged and amended petition, which was itself not in compliance with Rule 37.1(b) because it violated the margin requirements. Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37.2(e) states that “before the court acts upon a petition filed under this rule, the petition may be amended with leave of the court.” Our standard of review as to the denial of leave to amend is abuse of discretion; we determine whether the circuit court’s decision was arbitrary or groundless. Adams, supra.

We cannot say the circuit court abused its discretion in denying Walker’s motion to file an amended petition that again failed to comply with the requirements for filing a Rule 37 petition. See Badger, supra (stating that the circuit court was not required to permit the appellant to submit another petition to cure the margin deficiencies apparent in the original petition and noting that the rule does not guarantee the opportunity to cure such deficiencies). Here, although Walker did apparently attempt to cure the deficiencies in the original Rule 37 petition—as found by the circuit court—the amended petition was still not in compliance with Rule 37.1(b) and was properly dismissed on that ground alone.

Finally, we address Walker’s claim that the circumstances of his incarceration hindered his attempts to comply with Rule 37.1(b). This same argument was raised and rejected by the supreme court in Felty v. State, 2017 Ark. 1, at 4, 508 S.W.3d 26, 28:

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Felty argues that the circumstances of his incarceration prevented him from complying with Rule 37.1(b). This court, while recognizing that persons who are incarcerated may face certain obstacles in pursuing access to the courts, may take judicial notice that appeals from postconviction orders are frequently lodged in this court by incarcerated persons who have filed petitions that conform to Rule 37.1(b).

The fact that those conforming petitions are filed by petitioners who also may be assumed to confront certain hurdles occasioned by their incarceration suggests that Rule 37.1(b) is not unduly burdensome. See Smith, 2015 Ark. 23, at 3, 454 S.W.3d 219, 221.

Felty also contends that his lack of counsel to assist him in the Rule 37.1 proceeding hindered his ability to file a conforming petition. He cites Martinez v.

Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), as authority for the proposition that any defect should be excused. While this court is not unmindful of the holdings by the United States Supreme Court in Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), we have specifically noted that Martinez does not require this court to forgo procedural rules that serve to streamline the process by which petitioners present claims for postconviction relief to the trial courts. Smith, 2015 Ark. 23, at 4–5, 454 S.W.3d 219, 222. This is because the prompt and orderly disposition of petitions for postconviction relief requires standards to control the content, length and form of the petitions, and the number of such petitions that each petitioner is permitted to file. See Maulding [v. State], 299 Ark. 570, 776 S.W.2d 339.

Because neither Walker’s original Rule 37 petition nor his proposed amended petition conformed with Rule 37.1(b), we affirm the circuit court’s dismissal of those petitions.

Affirmed.

ABRAMSON and THYER, JJ., agree.

Jonathan Walker, pro se appellant.

Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: Jason Michael Johnson, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.