Stenhouse v. State

2016 Ark. 295, 497 S.W.3d 679, 2016 Ark. LEXIS 233
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJuly 21, 2016
DocketCR-04-1207
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 2016 Ark. 295 (Stenhouse 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
Stenhouse v. State, 2016 Ark. 295, 497 S.W.3d 679, 2016 Ark. LEXIS 233 (Ark. 2016).

Opinion

PER CURIAM

|! Petitioner Tishaun Stenhouse is incarcerated in the Arkansas Department of Correction pursuant to a 2004 judgment reflecting his convictions for capital murder and committing a felony with a firearm for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole plus 15 years’ imprisonment. This court affirmed his convictions and sentences. Stenhouse v. State, 362 Ark. 480, 209 S.W.3d 352 (2005).

Now before this court is Stenhouse’s application to reinvest jurisdiction in the trial court to consider a petition for writ of error coram nobis based on a claim that the prosecutor withheld material exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Stenhouse contends that this evidence would have established that Stenhouse had acted in self-defense at the time he shot the victim, Braylon Gray. In his response to the State’s response to his petition, Stenhouse alternatively alleges that had the evidence been disclosed there is a reasonable probability that he would have been convicted of a lesser- | ^included offense, or that his sentence for capital murder would have been mitigated. Stenhouse further contends that the prosecutor withheld evidence of plea deals that could have been used to impeach the credibility of the State’s eyewitnesses—Tiffany Williams and Brandon Landers.

In support of his claim for relief, an affidavit is attached to the petition executed by Tiffany- Williams in March 2016 wherein Williams recants her trial testimony in which she stated that Gtay was unarmed and walking away from Sten-house at the time Gray was shot and killed. Instead, Williams avers in the affidavit that Gray was armed, possessed drugs, and was approaching Stenhouse with a gun in hand when Stenhouse fired the fatal shots and that Williams removed Gray’s gun as well as the drugs and hid them before the police arrived. According to the affidavit, Williams informed the prosecutor that she had concealed Gray’s gun and drugs, and the prosecutor intentionally suppressed this revelation. Williams’s affidavit further accuses the prosecutor of securing probation for Williams on. felony forgery charges that were pending against her in exchange for Williams’s favorable testimony and of deliberately concealing the plea deal. Finally, Williams attests in the affidavit that the prosecutor gave Williams debit cards as well as “Old Navy” gift cards to ensure Williams’s continuing cooperation.

Stenhouse further alleges that Brandon Landers was also given a plea deal in exchange for his testimony, which was, likewise, withheld from the defense. In support of- this allegation, Stenhouse attaches documents demonstrating Lan-ders’s guilty pleas and sentences to possession of controlled substances in August 2003 and October 2003. According to Sten-house, the lenient sentences imposed as a result of Landers’s guilty pleas demonstrate |sthat Landers’s testimony was provided in exchange for plea deals that had been concealed from the defense.

We first note that a petition filed in this court for leave to proceed in the trial court where the judgment was entered is necessary because the trial court can entertain a petition for writ of error coram nobis after a judgment has been affirmed on appeal only after we grant permission. Roberts v. State, 2013 Ark. 56, at 11, 425 S.W.3d 771, 778. A writ of error coram nobis is an extraordinarily rare remedy. Howard v. State, 2012 Ark. 177, at 4, 403 S.W.3d 38, 42-43. Coram-nobis proceedings are attended by a strong presumption that the judgment of conviction is valid. Id. The function of the writ is to secure relief from a judgment rendered while there existed some fact that would have prevented its rendition if it had been known and which, through no negligence or fault of the defendant, was not brought forward before rendition of the judgment. Id. The petitioner has the burden of demonstrating a fundamental error of fact extrinsic to the record. Id.

The writ is allowed only under compelling circumstances to achieve justice and to address errors of the most fundamental nature. Id. We have held that a writ of error coram nobis is available for addressing certain errors that are found in one of four categories: (1) insanity at the time of trial, (2) a coerced guilty plea, (3) material evidence withheld by the prosecutor, or (4) a third-party confession to the crime during the time between conviction and appeal. Id.

We are not required to accept the allegations in a petition for writ of error coram nobis at face value. Goff v. State, 2012 Ark. 68, at 3, 398 S.W.3d 896, 898 (per curiam). While allegations of a Brady violation fall within one of the four categories of fundamental Lerror that this court has recognized, the fact that a petitioner alleges a Brady violation alone is not sufficient to provide a basis for error-coram-nobis relief. Smith v. State, 2015 Ark. 188, at 4-5, 461 S.W.3d 345, 349 (per curiam). To establish a Brady violation, three elements are required: (1) the evidence at issue must be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory or because it is impeaching; (2) that evidence must have been suppressed by the State, either willfully or inadvertently; (3) prejudice must have ensued. State v. Larimore, 341 Ark. 397, 404, 17 S.W.3d 87, 91 (2000).

Assuming that the alleged withheld evidence meets the requirements of a Brady violation and is both material and prejudicial, in order to justify issuance of the writ, the withheld material evidence must also be such as to have prevented rendition of the judgment had it been known at the time of trial. Smith, 2015 Ark. 188, at 4-5, 461 S.W.3d at 349. To merit relief, a petitioner must demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that the judgment of conviction would not have been rendered, or would have been prevented, had the information been disclosed at trial. Id. Finally, this court has held that recanted testimony is not cognizable in a claim for error-coram-nobis relief. Jackson v. State, 2010 Ark. 81, at 2 (per curiam). This is so because a writ of error coram nobis may not be used to contradict any fact already adjudicated. Smith v. State, 200 Ark. 767, 768, 140 S.W.2d 675, 676 (1940). Here, Williams recanted her trial testimony over ten years after Stenhouse had been convicted and his conviction had been affirmed on direct appeal. 1 Stenhouse, 362 Ark. 480, 209 S.W.3d 352.

| fjStenhouse contends in his petition that Williams’s affidavit establishes a Brady violation entitling him to coram-nobis relief because the allegations contained therein attest to the deliberate suppression of material evidence that was unknown to the defense, which creates a reasonable probability that, had this evidence been disclosed, the result of his trial would have been different.

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Bluebook (online)
2016 Ark. 295, 497 S.W.3d 679, 2016 Ark. LEXIS 233, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stenhouse-v-state-ark-2016.