Sartin v. State

2010 Ark. 16, 362 S.W.3d 877, 2010 WL 129696, 2010 Ark. LEXIS 23
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJanuary 14, 2010
DocketNo. CR 08-1104
StatusPublished
Cited by75 cases

This text of 2010 Ark. 16 (Sartin v. State) 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
Sartin v. State, 2010 Ark. 16, 362 S.W.3d 877, 2010 WL 129696, 2010 Ark. LEXIS 23 (Ark. 2010).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

[¡The court of appeals certified this criminal case to us pursuant to Arkansas Supreme Court Rule l-2(b)(5) (2009) as an issue needing clarification or development of the law. The question certified to us is whether a single omission from a no-merit brief necessarily requires rebriefing. We hold that it does, and we order rebriefing and remand the matter to the court of appeals.

On June 17, 2008, appellant Antonio Deshun Sartin was convicted of aggravated robbery and felony theft of property. He was sentenced to twenty and ten years’ imprisonment, respectively, in the Arkansas Department of Correction, with the sentences to be served consecutively. On June 28, 2008, appellant’s counsel, Danny R. Williams, filed a notice of appeal and designation of the record. On January 14, 2009, however, appellant’s ^counsel filed a motion to withdraw and, on January 22, 2009, filed the aforementioned brief in support of that motion pursuant to Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-3(k)(1) (2009) and Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967). Appellant was provided a copy of the brief by certified mail on that date and was informed that he had thirty days in which to file any points for reversal, the thirty-day period to expire on February 21, 2009.

Appellant then filed a pro se “Motion for Extension of Time to File Supplement to Appellant [sic] Brief on Direct Appeal of His Conviction for Review” on February 19, 2009; that motion was subsequently filed by the Clerk as “Appellant’s Pro Se Points” per an order of the court of appeals dated March 11, 2009. Appellee State filed a response to the points on April 10, 2009.

On April 22, 2009, appellant filed a pro se “Appellant’s Supplement Points For Appeal,” which was treated both as a supplement to the March 11 points and an objection to the Clerk’s entry of the March 11 motion as appellant’s points for appeal. Appellee filed its substituted reply brief to appellant’s points on May 21, 2009. The court of appeals subsequently found that appellant counsel had failed to discuss one adverse ruling in his Anders brief in contravention of the plain language of Rule 4 — 3(k)(1).1 Normally, such omissions require rebriefing. However, because some of our more recent holdings regarding Rule 4 — 3(k)(1) suggest that a minor omission may not necessarily be fatal, while older holdings are ^explicit that any missing adverse rulings require re-briefing, the court of appeals certified the case to this court pursuant to Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 1 — 2(b)(5) (2009) on June 30, 2009, as involving an issue needing clarification or development of the law. Because we distinguish the more recent holdings as inapposite to the instant case, we stay counsel’s motion to withdraw and order rebriefing.

The purpose and substance of a brief in support of an attorney’s motion to withdraw as counsel where an appeal would be without merit is governed in part by An-ders and subsequent United States Supreme Court holdings. The Court held that the purpose of the Anders brief is both “to provide the appellate courts with a basis for determining whether appointed counsel have fully performed their duty to support their clients’ appeal to the best of their ability,” and to aid the court in its “critical determination whether the appeal is indeed so frivolous that counsel should be permitted to withdraw.” McCoy v. Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, 486 U.S. 429, 439, 108 S.Ct. 1895, 100 L.Ed.2d 440 (1988).

These purposes, in turn, were held to have imposed two duties on an appellate court faced with an Anders brief. First, the court “must satisfy itself that the attorney has provided the client with a diligent and thorough search of the record for any arguable claim that might support the client’s appeal.” Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75, 83, 109 S.Ct. 346, 102 L.Ed.2d 300 (1988) (citing McCoy, 486 U.S. at 442, 108 S.Ct. 1895). Second, the court “must determine whether counsel has correctly concluded that the appeal is frivolous.” Penson, 488 U.S. at 83, 109 S.Ct. 346.

To fulfill the duties imposed in no-merit withdrawal cases, we promulgated Rule 4-3, |4which, in pertinent part, requires appellant counsel’s brief to “contain ... a list of all rulings adverse to the defendant made by the circuit court on all objections ... with an explanation as to why each ... is not a meritorious ground for reversal.” Ark. Sup.Ct. R. 4-3(k)(1) (2009). The rule further requires that “the abstract and addendum of the brief shall contain ... all rulings adverse to the defendant.” Id. We cannot affirm an appellant’s conviction and allow an attorney to withdraw without adequate discussion as to why a particular ruling by the trial court should not be a meritorious ground for reversal. Brady v. State, 346 Ark. 298, 302, 57 S.W.3d 691, 694 (2001); Mitchell v. State, 327 Ark. 285, 286-7, 938 S.W.2d 814, 815 (1997). Therefore, generally speaking, if a no-merit brief fails to address all the adverse rulings, we will send it back for rebriefing. Brady, 346 Ark. 298, 57 S.W.3d 691; Mitchell, 327 Ark. 285, 938 S.W.2d 814.

Recent cases from this court, however, have held that, in certain situations, failure to include one or more adverse rulings will not automatically require remand for re-briefing if the omitted adverse ruling(s) would not be grounds for reversal had any such rulings been properly included.

In Linker-Flores v. Arkansas Department of Human Services, 364 Ark. 224, 217 S.W.3d 107 (2005), this court applied the Anders procedures to indigent parent appeals from orders terminating parental rights.2 See Adams v. Ark. Dep’t of Health and Human Servs., 375 Ark. 402, 291 S.W.3d 172 (2009). Our review of the record in Linker-Flores revealed three | ¿¡additional rulings adverse to Mrs. Linker-Flores that were not abstracted or included in the argument section of the brief, which would normally have required re-briefing. 364 Ark. at 232, 217 S.W.3d at 114 (citing Brady v. State, 346 Ark. 298, 57 S.W.3d 691 (2001) and Mitchell v. State, 327 Ark. 285, 938 S.W.2d 814 (1997)). Nevertheless, because Linker-Flores was our first occasion to address the specific procedures for a termination-of-parental-rights no-merit brief, the adverse rulings were clearly not meritorious, and we wanted to avoid any additional delay in the case, we declined to order rebriefing. Id.

Similarly, in Lewis v. Arkansas Department of Human Services, 364 Ark. 243, 217 S.W.3d 788

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Bluebook (online)
2010 Ark. 16, 362 S.W.3d 877, 2010 WL 129696, 2010 Ark. LEXIS 23, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sartin-v-state-ark-2010.