Kelley v. Washington

843 S.W.2d 797, 311 Ark. 73, 1992 Ark. LEXIS 665
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedNovember 9, 1992
Docket92-588
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 843 S.W.2d 797 (Kelley v. Washington) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kelley v. Washington, 843 S.W.2d 797, 311 Ark. 73, 1992 Ark. LEXIS 665 (Ark. 1992).

Opinion

Robert L. Brown, Justice.

The appellants, who are records personnel with the Arkansas Department of Correction and the Department itself, raise two issues in this appeal: 1) whether the Pulaski County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to amend its judgment to run its sentence consecutively to previous sentences; and 2) whether the Jefferson County Circuit Court erred in computing parole eligibility based on time served in a federal institution. We affirm in part and reverse in part and remand.

On July 2, 1975, appellee Warded Washington was convicted in Pulaski County Circuit Court of possession of heroin and intent to deliver heroin. He was sentenced to fifteen years and five years, respectively, to be served concurrently. On that same date, Washington was also convicted in federal court of the offense of delivering heroin, arising out of the same incident, and sentenced to fifteen years. He was subsequently incarcerated in the Federal Correctional Facility in Texarkana, Texas. His state sentences were to run concurrently with his federal sentence so that a day served in the federal institution would also reduce his state sentences by a day.

In 1987, while on parole from the federal institution, Washington forged several checks, which resulted in two state court convictions. On August 22, 1988, he was convicted in Jefferson County Circuit Court of second degree forgery and was sentenced to fifteen years to be served concurrently with the remainder of his 1975 state sentences and consecutively with the remainder of his 1975 federal conviction. His parole was revoked due to this conviction.

On May 9, 1989, Washington was convicted in Pulaski County Circuit Court of second-degree forgery and sentenced to thirty years to be served concurrently with the 1975 state sentences and consecutively with the 1975 federal sentence. At this time, Washington had thirteen months and twenty-three days left to serve on his 1975 state convictions, which meant that the sentences would expire on July 2, 1990. He was still imprisoned in the federal facility.

On June 20, 1990, Washington completed his federal sentence and was taken, for the first time, to the Arkansas Department of Correction. Shortly after arriving at the Department, Washington petitioned the Pulaski County Circuit Court to amend his 1989 sentence to run that sentence consecutively to his 1975 state convictions. On September 10, 1990, the circuit court entered an order amending the original sentence and granting Washington the relief requested.

On February 8,1991, Washington filed a petition for writ of mandamus and declaratory judgment in Jefferson County Circuit Court, requesting that the 1975 sentences, the 1988 sentence in Jefferson County, and the 1989 sentence in Pulaski County be considered as consecutive sentences which would allow cumulative treatment under our decision in Bosnick v. Lockhart, 283 Ark. 206, 672 S.W.2d 52 (1984). He then petitioned for an amended order from the Pulaski County Circuit Court to run the 1989 sentence consecutively to the 1975 state sentences. When Washington did so, however, he failed to tell that court that he had been convicted in Jefferson County for forgery and sentenced to fifteen years in 1988. Because of this, the Pulaski County Circuit Court’s order of September 10,1990, did not run the 1989 sentence consecutively to the Jefferson County sentence. In order to correct the matter further, Washington made an oral motion to the Pulaski County Circuit Court to amend its order to include the fact that its 1989 sentence should also run consecutively to the 1988 Jefferson County sentence. The Pulaski County Circuit Court then issued the requested amended order on February 13, 1992.

After issuing that amended order, the Jefferson County Circuit Court decided the petition in Washington’s favor under Bosnick v. Lockhart and calculated his total sentence as a single commitment for sixty years with one-third to serve for parole eligibility under then-existing law, which was Act 50 of 1968. The Department has now appealed from the circuit court’s order.

The Department first contends that the Pulaski County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to amend its 1989 sentence and run it consecutively to the 1975 Arkansas judgments. The circuit court amended its judgment in response to Washington’s motion which was made within 120 days after the conviction was affirmed. The circuit court noted in its order that its first sentence was a legal sentence, imposed in an illegal manner and that it could be corrected if the motion requesting relief was filed within 120 days of affirmance by the appellate court. Here, Washington’s motion to correct the sentence was filed 96 days after affirmance. But a mere filing of the motion does not suffice. The statute clearly reads that the correction of a sentence imposed in an illegal manner must occur within 120 days “after receipt by the court of a mandate issued upon affirmance •. . . .” See Ark. Code Ann. § 16-90-111 (Supp. 1991); see also Fritts v. State, 298 Ark. 533, 768 S.W.2d 541 (1989).

It is clear that a circuit court only retains jurisdiction to correct or modify a sentence for this 120 day period, and that after the sentence is placed into execution, the court loses jurisdiction. See Redding v. State, 293 Ark. 411, 738 S.W.2d 410 (1987). Here, however, the record is silent on when the mandate was received by the court. The record does reflect that the order correcting the sentence was issued on September 10, 1990 — 145 days after the affirmance of the sentence on April 18, 1990. The mandate, though, could not be issued sooner than seventeen days after that affirmance under Supreme Court Rule 22, and since a motion for reconsideration could have delayed the mandate even further, we cannot say with any certainty that the Pulaski County Circuit Court’s first order running the thirty-year sentence consecutively to the 1975 state sentences was outside of the 120 day time limit for jurisdiction. By failing to show when the circuit court received the mandate, the Department simply failed to prove facts sufficient to sustain lack of jurisdiction in that court.

We, further, do not agree with the Department that the applicable statute used by the Pulaski County Circuit Court to assess consecutive punishment was inappropriate. See Ark. Code Ann. § 16-93-607(e)(1) (1987). That statute reads:

When any convicted felon, while on parole, is convicted of another felony, the felon shall be committed to the Department of Correction to serve the remainder of his original sentence, including any portion suspended, with credit for good-time allowances. Upon conviction for the subsequent felony, the court shall require the sentence for the subsequent felony to be served consecutively with the sentence for the previous felony.

It is true that the statute speaks in terms of revoking parole and returning to the Department of Correction. We can discern no material difference, though, between parole from a state sentence and parole from a federal institution where the defendant is serving state time concurrently with the federal sentence.

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Bluebook (online)
843 S.W.2d 797, 311 Ark. 73, 1992 Ark. LEXIS 665, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kelley-v-washington-ark-1992.