Davis v. State

• Decision Date: 21 July 2016
• Docket Number: No. CR-09-339,CR-09-339
• Citation: 498 S.W.3d 279,2016 Ark. 296
• Parties: Adam Davis, Jr., Petitioner v. State of Arkansas, Respondent
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

2016 Ark. 296

498 S.W.3d 279

Adam Davis, Jr., Petitioner

v.State of Arkansas, Respondent

No. CR-09-339

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Opinion Delivered July 21, 2016

PER CURIAM

Petitioner, Adam Davis, Jr., was convicted by a jury of the capital murder of his wife and attempted first-degree murder of his wife's friend and was sentenced to consecutive terms of life imprisonment without parole and an aggregate term of 720 months' imprisonment for attempted first-degree murder with two firearm enhancements. Davis's convictions and sentences were affirmed on direct appeal by this court. Davis v. State , 2009 Ark. 478, 348 S.W.3d 553. Now before this court is Davis's second pro se petition to reinvest jurisdiction in the trial court to consider a petition for writ of error coram nobis.

The function of the writ is to secure relief from a judgment rendered while there existed some fact that would have prevented the rendition of the judgment had it been known to the trial court and which, through no fault of the defendant, was not brought forward before rendition of the judgment. Newman v. State , 2009 Ark. 539, at 5, 354 S.W.3d 61, 65. A writ of error coram nobis is an extraordinarily rare remedy more known for its denial than its approval. 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 petitioner has the burden of demonstrating a fundamental error of fact extrinsic to the record. 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.

In his second petition, Davis alleges that his wife survived the gunshot wound to the head that he inflicted and that her death resulted from police incompetence in failing to provide immediate medical attention. Although Davis raised this same allegation in the first petition, he now asserts that a dash-cam video demonstrating that police failed to check his wife's vital signs was suppressed by the prosecutor, together with an investigator's report describing the conclusions of the medical examiner and a copy of his wife's death certificate, in violation of Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Davis also adds an allegation that his mental deficits rendered him incompetent to stand trial.

We have held that we will not exercise our discretion to permit a successive application for the writ of error coram nobis if the petitioner is abusing the writ by alleging the same grounds without additional facts sufficient to provide grounds for the writ. Allen v. State , 2014 Ark. 368, at 5–6, 440 S.W.3d 329, 332–33 (per curiam). A court has the discretion to determine whether the renewal of an application for a coram-nobis petition will be permitted when a petitioner raises additional facts in support of the same claim for relief. Rodgers v. State , 2013 Ark. 294, at 3–4 (per curiam); see also Jackson v. State, 2010 Ark. 81 (per curiam); United States v. Camacho – Bordes , 94 F.3d 1168 (8th Cir.1996) (res judicata did not apply to bar a second petition for writ of error coram nobis, but abuse-of-writ doctrine was applied to subsume res judicata). Here, Davis's attempt to frame his former allegations within the context of a Brady claim fails to provide grounds for coram-nobis relief.

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 error 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).

Davis's Brady claim is not supported by evidence demonstrating that information pertaining to the time and manner of his wife's death was withheld or unknown at the time of trial.¹ Even so, Davis does not allege facts establishing that such evidence was material. Material evidence in the context of a Brady violation has been defined as evidence giving rise to a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would be different. Smith , 2015 Ark. 188, at 4–5, 461 S.W.3d at 349. Although there is no evidence that Davis's wife initially survived three gunshots wounds, including one to the head,² whether sh...