Arnold v. State

• Decision Date: 29 September 2011
• Docket Number: No. CR 10–353.,CR 10–353.
• Citation: 384 S.W.3d 488,2011 Ark. 395
• Parties: Vera Ann ARNOLD, Appellant v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

2011 Ark. 395

384 S.W.3d 488

Vera Ann ARNOLD, Appellant

v.STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 10–353.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Sept. 29, 2011.

Brad Hendricks Law Firm, by: Lloyd W. “Tre” Kitchens, III, Little Rock, for appellant.

Dustin McDaniel, Att'y Gen., by: Rachel M. Hurst, Ass't Att'y Gen., for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

On July 10, 1998, appellant Vera Ann Arnold was convicted in Pulaski County Circuit Court of criminal solicitation to commit capital murder and criminal conspiracy to commit theft by deception. She received a total sentence of 480 months' incarceration in the Arkansas Department of Correction. The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed. Arnold v. State, CACR 99–35, 1999 WL 1029746 (Ark.App. Nov. 3, 1999) (unpublished).

Appellant was paroled in 2008, and she filed petitions to seal the records of both convictions. In her petitions, appellant alleged that she had been sentenced under Arkansas Code Annotated section 5–4–105(a)(2) (Supp.2009) and Arkansas Code Annotated sections 16–93–1201 to –1210 (Supp.1995 & Repl.2006), which provide for the sealing or expungement of certain criminal records. The circuit court found that appellant was not sentenced under these statutes, and the petitions were denied in a written order entered January 13, 2009. Appellant subsequently filed new petitions to seal the records of both convictions based on her assertion that she had been sentenced under Arkansas Code Annotated section 5–4–105(a)(1) and Arkansas Code Annotated sections 16–93–301 to –303 (Repl.2006).

Along with these petitions, appellant also filed a motion for relief from the January 13, 2009 order, pursuant to Arkansas Rule of Civil Procedure 60(a) (2011). In that motion, she argued that sections 16–93–1201 to –1210 were not in effect as of the date of her offenses and, due to appellant's exercising her right to a jury trial rather than pleading guilty, no statutes existed as to appellant that would allow for the expungement and sealing of her criminal records. Thus, according to appellant, she was eligible to refile her petitions under sections 16–93–301 to –303, which were only available to defendants who entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere. Because she could not have her records expunged under these statutes, while someone who pled guilty to the same offenses could, appellant argued that the statutes were unconstitutional as both an equal-protection and a due-process violation. Furthermore, because the statutes were unconstitutional, appellant argued that her sentence was illegal as well.

The trial court held a hearing on the motion and the petitions and denied all three without prejudice. In its order, the trial court found, inter alia, that sections 16–93–1201 to –1210 were adopted in 1997 and inapplicable to appellant, that those sections did not provide relief equitable to the relief available under sections 16–93–301 to –303, that section 5–4–105(a)(1) and sections 16–93–301 to –303 are constitutional, and that it lacked jurisdiction to grant appellant's motion or petitions. In holding that the statutes were constitutional, the trial court found that there was a rational basis for the state interest advanced in Arkansas Code Annotated section 5–4–105(a)(1) and sections 16–93–301 to –303. The order specifically denied “each and every argument raised by” appellant. Appellant timely filed in this court an appeal from the trial court's order, and her brief was filed in this court on June 14, 2010.

On August 3, 2011, appellant filed a motion for oral argument, asserting that oral argument in her case is authorized by Rule 5–1 of the Rules of the Arkansas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals (2011), “particularly Rule 5–1(a).” Yet, despite pointing to Rule 5–1(a), appellant seemingly ignores that a request for oral argument must be made “contemporaneously with” either appellant's brief-in-chief or her reply brief. See Ferguson v. State, 342 Ark. 273, 26 S.W.3d 787 (2000) (per curiam). Here, appellant's brief-in-chief was filed on June 14, 2010, her reply brief was filed on August 27, 2010, and her August 3, 2011 motion was not filed contemporaneously with either brief.

At one time, our oral-argument rules allowed parties to file a motion for oral argument at any time that was “not more than five days after appellant's reply brief is filed or becomes due, whichever occurs first.” See Ark. Sup.Ct. R. 5–1(a) (1994); see also Ark. Sup.Ct. R. 18(a) (1993). This was changed, however, when the current version of Rule 5–1, which removed the five-day window and explicitly added the “contemporaneously with” language, took effect on September 1, 1997. See Ark. Sup.Ct. R. 5–1(a) (1998). When construing a court rule, we use the same means and canons of construction that are used to interpret statutes. Pope v. Overton, 2011 Ark. 11, 376 S.W.3d 400 (citing Jackson v. Sparks Reg'l Med. Ctr., 375 Ark. 533, 294 S.W.3d 1 (2009)). We therefore construe a court rule so that no word is left void, superfluous, or insignificant, and we give meaning and effect to every word in the rule. See id. Accordingly, because appellant failed to file her motion for oral argument “contemporaneously with” either her brief-in-chief or her reply brief, she has not met one of the predicate requirements for requesting oral arguments, and her motion is denied.

We turn, then, to the substance of the underlying appeal. On appeal, appellant raises three points: (1) the trial court should have applied strict scrutiny, rather than rational-basis review, to the statutes in question; (2) the trial court erred in finding section 5–4–105(a)(1) and sections 16–93–301 to –303 constitutional, as they impermissibly violate appellant's rights to plead not guilty, to have a jury trial, to due process, and to equal protection; (3) the statutes in question impermissibly violate appellant's constitutional right to a legal sentence.

This court reviews both the circuit court's interpretation of the constitution as well as issues of statutory interpretation de novo, because it is for this court to determine the meaning of a statute. See Forrester v. Martin, 2011 Ark. 277, 383 S.W.3d 375. In considering the constitutionality of a statute, this court recognizes the existence of a strong presumption that every statute is constitutional. Barclay v. First Paris Holding Co., 344 Ark. 711, 42 S.W.3d 496 (2001). The burden of rebutting a statute's constitutionality is on the party challenging the legislation. Id. An act should be struck down only when there is a clear incompatibility between the act and the constitution. Id. We acknowledge that it is the duty of the courts to sustain a statute unless it appears to be clearly outside the scope of reasonable and legitimate regulation. Jegley v. Picado, 349 Ark. 600, 80 S.W.3d 332 (2002) (citing City of Little Rock v. Smith, 204 Ark. 692, 163 S.W.2d 705 (1942)). Because appellant's arguments are entirely without merit, she has not met her burden of rebutting the constitutionality of the statutes in question, and we affirm.

The gravamen of appellant's first argument on appeal is that the statutes in question infringe on “fundamental rights” and are, therefore, subject to strict scrutiny, which means that they cannot pass constitutional muster unless they provide the least restrictive method available that is narrowly tailored to accomplish a compelling state interest. See Ark. Dep't of Human Servs. v. Cole, 2011 Ark. 145, 380 S.W.3d 429. Specifically, appellant argues that, by offering the possibility to expungement or sealing of records only to people who plead guilty or nolo contendere, section 5–4–105(a)(1) and sections 16–93–301 to –303 infringe on her right to plead not guilty and her right to a trial by jury, which are found in article 2, sections 7 and 10, of the Arkansas Constitution and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Therefore, appellant argues, the trial court should have applied strict scrutiny under Jegley. Further, appellant asserts that the statutes could not survive strict-scrutiny review, and the trial court's order should be reversed and remanded for expungement of appellant's convictions.

We need not address the merits of this argument, as it is clear that appellant lacks the requisite standing to bring this claim. In numerous cases, we have held that a litigant has standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute if the law is unconstitutional as applied to that particular litigant. Gallas v. Alexander, 371 Ark. 106, 263 S.W.3d 494 (2007) (citing Morrison v. Jennings, 328 Ark. 278, 943 S.W.2d 559 (1997)); Hamilton v. Hamilton, 317 Ark. 572, 879 S.W.2d 416 (1994). The general rule is that one must have suffered injury or belong to a class that is prejudiced in order to have standing to challenge the validity of a law. Gallas, 371 Ark. 106, 263 S.W.3d 494. Appellant pled not guilty and received a jury trial. She therefore has not suffered an injury, because, as to appellant, the law did not “impose an impermissible burden upon the exercise of [her] right to a jury trial and [her right] not to plead guilty,” despite her assertions to the contrary.

Appellant's attempt to reframe her argument on this point in her reply brief is similarly unavailing. In response to the State's argument that appellant lacked standing to raise this claim because her right to a jury trial was not infringed, appellant asserts that she was punished for exercising her fundamental rights, which she claims is unconstitutional under United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570, 88 S.Ct. 1209, 20 L.Ed.2d 138 (1968). In Jackson, the United States Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Federal Kidnapping Act that allowed for the death penalty if a defendant went to trial and was convicted, while not allowing for the same punishment if a defendant pled guilty. The Court found that the “inevitable effect of any such provision is, of course, to discourage assertion of the...