Owen Watson v. State of Arkansas

2025 Ark. App. 52

• Court: Court of Appeals of Arkansas
• Decided: January 29, 2025
• Status: Published

Opinion

Cite as 2025 Ark. App. 52 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION IV No. CR-24-186

OWEN WATSON Opinion Delivered January 29, 2025 APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE CRITTENDEN COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT V. [NO. 18CR-22-338]

STATE OF ARKANSAS HONORABLE RANDY F. PHILHOURS, APPELLEE JUDGE

REMANDED TO SETTLE AND SUPPLEMENT THE RECORD

WAYMOND M. BROWN, Judge

Owen Watson brings this interlocutory appeal from an order of the Crittenden

County Circuit Court denying his motion to dismiss charges against him for rape and

second-degree sexual assault. On appeal, appellant argues that the circuit court erred in

denying his motion because a retrial of the charges is barred by double jeopardy. We remand

to settle and supplement the record.

Appellant faced the above-mentioned criminal charges as well as a revocation

proceeding during the same trial held on February 27–28, 2023. While a mistrial was

declared in the criminal case, the revocation proceeded and resulted in appellant’s probation

being revoked. Appellant filed a motion to dismiss his criminal charges on double-jeopardy

grounds on April 17. The State filed a response on April 28. The circuit court held a hearing on appellant’s motion on February 12, 2024. It filed an order denying appellant’s motion

on February 15. Appellant filed a notice of interlocutory appeal.

In his notice, appellant designated the transcript from the February 2023 trial as part

of his record on appeal. However, that transcript was not included in the record submitted

with appellant’s appeal. To make things complicated, appellant has consistently cited to

pages in the missing record in his argument. Our rules require that “[r]eference in the

argument portion” of the appellant’s brief “to material found in the appellate record shall

be followed by a reference to the page number of the appellate record” where that

information can be found.1 The rules also state that if anything material to either party is

omitted from the record by error or accident, we may direct that the omission be corrected

and, if necessary, that a supplemental record by certified and transmitted.2 Because the

February 2023 transcript is not included with appellant’s record on appeal, we remand to

settle and supplement the record. Appellant has thirty days from the date of this opinion to

file a supplemental record with this court.

Remanded to settle and supplement the record.

TUCKER and WOOD, JJ., agree.

Sharon Kiel, for appellant.

Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: Brooke Jackson Gasaway, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

1 See Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-2(a)(7). 2 Ark. R. App. P–Civ. 6(e) (made applicable to criminal cases by Ark. R. App. P.–Crim 4(a)).