Fields v. Hobbs
| Decision Date | 24 October 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. CV-12-625,CV-12-625 |
| Parties | MICHAEL FIELDS APPELLANT v. RAY HOBBS, DIRECTOR, ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION APPELLEE |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
APPEAL FROM THE HOT SPRING COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 30CV-12-34-1]
AFFIRMED.
In 2009, Appellant Michael Fields pled guilty to one count of rape in the Perry County Circuit Court and to an additional count of rape in the Conway County Circuit Court, for which he received a total of ten years' imprisonment. Fields subsequently filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Hot Spring County, where he is currently incarcerated, and the circuit court denied his petition. On appeal, Fields argues that the circuit court erred in denying his habeas petition because (1) the Perry County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to convict him of a crime that occurred in Conway County and (2) the judgment entered against him in Conway County violates the Double Jeopardy Clause and is invalid on its face. We affirm.
On October 2, 2007, Fields was charged in Conway County with two counts of rape that occurred "on or about July 2006 and November 4 or November 5, 2006, in Conway County, Arkansas." In count one, the State alleged that Fields engaged in deviate sexualactivity with D.J., a person under the age of fourteen. Count two alleged that Fields engaged in deviate sexual activity with S.J., who was also under the age of fourteen. On October 8, 2007, Fields was charged with two counts of rape of S.J. and D.J. in Perry County. Count one of that information alleged that Fields raped S.J. "on or about October 18, 2005 through July 20, 2007." The second count alleged that the rape of D.J. occurred "on or about June 15, 2004 through July 20, 2007."
On January 6, 2009, Fields pled guilty in the Perry County Circuit Court to one count of rape, for which he was sentenced to ten years' incarceration. The judgment and commitment order recites that the offense date was November 4, 2006, but it does not identify the victim of the crime or indicate to which count of the information Fields pled guilty. The judgment also has the word "MERGED" printed over count two in a strikethrough script as follows: "MERGED."
On August 11, 2009, Fields pled guilty in the Conway County Circuit Court to one additional count of rape and received another ten-year sentence. A handwritten note on the order provided that the sentence was to run concurrently with the Perry County sentence. The judgment-and-commitment order indicates that the offense date was "October 18, 2005 through July 20, 2007[,]" but again does not identify the victim of the crime or state to which count of the information Fields pled guilty. This judgment does not identify a second offense or contain the word "merged."
In February 2012, Fields petitioned the Hot Spring County Circuit Court for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. §§ 16-112-101 et seq., alleging that the rapeto which he pled guilty in Perry County was that of S.J. and that the information pertaining to the investigation of the crime in the State's file indicated that the alleged sexual activity with S.J. took place in Fields's deer stand, which is actually located in Conway County. He thus argued that the Perry County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to convict and sentence him. Fields attached his affidavit to his petition, in which he averred that when he entered his plea in the Perry County Circuit Court, he believed that he was pleading guilty to an allegation of rape that occurred in Conway County. He also attached several documents from the police's investigatory file to support his allegation. Fields further alleged that the Conway County Circuit Court judgment was invalid on its face and violates the double-jeopardy clause because that count had previously been "merged" into the judgment entered in Perry County. Fields attached the judgment-and-commitment orders from both counties to his petition.
The Hot Spring County Circuit Court held a telephonic hearing on Fields's petition, and counsel for both Fields and the State presented their arguments. The circuit court then entered an order on April 2, 2012, denying the habeas petition. The court found that the property on which the crimes occurred lies on the Perry/Conway county line and extends into both counties; that the judgment-and-commitment orders do not identify the victims of the crimes or state to which counts Fields pled guilty; that Ark. Code Ann. § 5-1-111(b) creates a presumption that a crime occurred where the charge is filed by the State; that the State is not required to prove jurisdiction absent an affirmative showing that such jurisdiction is lacking; that Fields did not demonstrate that he had presented any evidence to challengejurisdiction at his 2009 plea hearing in Perry County; that in order for the Perry County Circuit Court to have accepted Fields's guilty plea, under Ark. R. Crim. P. 24.6, he had to admit that the factual basis for the rape described by the State was true, including that it occurred in Perry County; that Fields had not produced transcripts of his plea hearings in either county to show the factual bases for the rapes to which he pled guilty; that there was nothing on the face of the Perry County judgment showing that the rape to which he pled guilty occurred outside that county; and that the fact that Fields may have committed one or more rapes in Conway County does not preclude the possibility that he also committed rapes in Perry County, as he was charged with rapes in both counties that allegedly occurred over a wide range of time.
With regard to Fields's allegation that the Conway County judgment was invalid on its face because it violated the double-jeopardy clause, the circuit court found that there was nothing on the face of that judgment to suggest that either of the rape charges had been merged into the Perry County charge or that Fields had been twice sentenced for the same offense. The court noted that the only mention of Perry County in the Conway County judgment-and-commitment order is the notation that the sentence in Conway County was to run concurrent with the Perry County sentence. The circuit court found that Fields had failed to explain...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Proctor v. Payne
...the jurisdiction of the court to hear the case, and the claim is not one that is cognizable in habeas proceedings. Fields v. Hobbs , 2013 Ark. 416, at 3, 2013 WL 5775566. Here, Proctor does not allege that his individual sentences are outside the statutory range of his offenses. When Procto......
- Wolfe v. Payne
-
Waller v. State
...or that the commitment was invalid on its face, there is no basis for a finding that a writ of habeas corpus should issue. Fields v. Hobbs, 2013 Ark. 416. In habeas proceedings, an illegal sentence is one that exceeds the statutory maximum sentence. See Hobbs v. Turner, 2014 Ark. 19, 431 S.......
- Jones v. Payne