Mister v. State
| Decision Date | 17 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | No. CR-20-740,CR-20-740 |
| Parties | Sharvelt Marquette MISTER, Appellant v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Hurst Law Group, Hot Springs, by: Q. Byrum Hurst, for appellant.
Leslie Rutledge, Att'y Gen., by: Michael Zangari, Ass't Att'y Gen., for appellee.
Appellant Sharvelt Marquette Mister appeals from the Sebastian County Circuit Court's denial of his petition to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-90-111 (Repl. 2016). For reversal, Mister argues that (1) the rights vested in him by the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were violated by his unlawful arrest, rendering his sentences void and illegal; (2) his sentences violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; and (3) his trial counsel was ineffective by failing to move for dismissal of his charges based on a lack of probable cause to support his arrest. We accepted certification of this case from the Arkansas Court of Appeals as a subsequent appeal following an appeal that was decided by this court. See Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 1-2(a)(7) (2021). We affirm.
On August 21, 2001, Mister pled guilty to three felony drug offenses for which he received a sentence of nineteen years’ imprisonment and a ten-year suspended imposition of sentence ("SIS") on each charge. On September 19, 2007, Mister pled guilty to three additional drug offenses and received sentences of twelve years’ imprisonment and an eight-year SIS for each of those charges. The State petitioned to revoke the six suspended sentences on December 27, 2010, alleging that on December 2 and December 20, 2010, Mister committed the offenses of delivery of cocaine. The circuit court granted the petition to revoke after a hearing and sentenced Mister to twenty-one years’ imprisonment on each of the three 2001 convictions and eighteen years’ imprisonment on each of the three 2007 convictions. The court ran the three 21-year sentences concurrently, ran two of the 18-year sentences concurrently to each other but consecutive to the three 21-year sentences, and ran the third 18-year sentence consecutively to both the three 21-year sentences and the two 18-year sentences, for a total of fifty-seven years’ imprisonment. Mister appealed his revocation, which was affirmed.
Mister v. State , 2012 Ark. App. 375, 2012 WL 1943630. The denial of Mister's subsequent petition for postconviction relief pursuant to Ark. R. Crim. P. 37 was also affirmed on appeal. Mister v. State , 2014 Ark. 445, 446 S.W.3d 624.
In 2011, Mister was tried and convicted on the two counts of delivery of cocaine forming the basis for his revocation. He was sentenced as a habitual offender to forty years’ imprisonment in CR-10-1319 and twenty-five years’ imprisonment, plus a twenty-five-year SIS, in CR-10-1320. The sentences were ordered to be run consecutively to each other and to the fifty-seven-year sentence imposed in the revocation proceeding. Mister appealed both of these convictions, which were affirmed in Mister v. State , 2012 Ark. App. 536, 2012 WL 4478652, and Mister v. State , 2013 Ark. App. 49, 2013 WL 361824. Mister appealed from the denial of his Rule 37 petition in CR-10-1320, which was also affirmed. Mister v. State , 2014 Ark. 446, 2014 WL 5494016. He subsequently filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Lincoln County Circuit Court, the denial of which was affirmed by this court in Mister v. State , 2019 Ark. 187, 575 S.W.3d 410.
On September 11, 2020, Mister filed his current petition to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. § 16-90-111. He alleged that the sentences imposed in his 2011 convictions and in his revocation were "null and void" because the arrest warrant and criminal information were not accompanied by a sworn affidavit or supported by probable cause. Mister claimed that his illegal detention violated the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure and his constitutional rights as protected by the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and that the circuit court was divested of jurisdiction to render judgment in his cases based on his unlawful arrest. He also asserted Supremacy Clause and separation-of-powers violations and claimed that the prosecution, the circuit court, and the attorneys had violated their oaths of office and engaged in "acts of treason."1 Finally, Mister alleged that his trial counsel was ineffective by not moving to dismiss the charges based on the illegal arrest.
The circuit court entered an order denying Mister's petition on September 17, 2020. With regard to Mister's challenges to the validity of his arrest, the court found that this was not a jurisdictional defect that would render the sentences imposed illegal. The court also found that Mister had failed to show that his sentences were facially illegal and that his allegations of a constitutional violation did not render the judgments invalid. As to Mister's treason argument, the circuit court stated that this allegation was "absurd and without any substantial proof." Mister's appeal from the circuit court's order on October 27, 2020, was untimely. However, he subsequently obtained counsel, who filed a motion for leave to file a belated appeal that was granted by the court of appeals.
In his first point on appeal, Mister continues to argue that his sentences were rendered void and illegal because of his allegedly unlawful arrest. Specifically, he claims that he was arrested on December 20, 2010, following a controlled buy; that an unsworn affidavit titled "Affidavit of Probable Cause Determination" was faxed to the prosecutor's office the next day; that no formal first appearances or probable-cause hearings were ever conducted by a neutral judicial officer; and that when criminal charges were finally filed against him on July 12, 2011, the charging instruments were not supported by attached affidavits given upon oath or affirmation. Mister asserts that his requests from the Sebastian County Circuit Clerk for an affidavit of probable cause determination, an arrest warrant, or a record of his first judicial appearance also revealed no such documents in the record. He argues that the failure to present any sworn evidence to a neutral and detached judicial officer for an independent determination of probable cause either before or after his arrest "does not satisfy the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendment subject matter jurisdiction standards" and that because jurisdiction over him never attached, his sentences are therefore illegal.
Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-90-111(a) provides authority to a circuit court to correct a facially illegal sentence—as opposed to one imposed illegally—at any time.2 Willingham v. State , 2021 Ark. 177, 631 S.W.3d 58; Rea v. State , 2021 Ark. 134, 2021 WL 2373543. In addition, a circuit court may reduce a sentence upon revocation of probation as provided by law. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-90-111(b)(2). We have held that an illegal sentence is one that is illegal on its face. Willingham , supra . A sentence is illegal on its face when it is void because it is beyond the circuit court's authority to impose and gives rise to a question of subject-matter jurisdiction. Clark v. State , 2021 Ark. 130, 2021 WL 2373552. The petitioner seeking relief under section 16-90-111(a) carries the burden of demonstrating that his or her sentence was illegal. Id. Sentencing is entirely a matter of statute in Arkansas, and the general rule is that a sentence imposed within the maximum term prescribed by law is not illegal on its face. Willingham , supra . A circuit court has subject-matter jurisdiction to hear and determine cases involving violations of criminal statutes, and typically, trial error does not implicate the jurisdiction of the circuit court or, as a consequence, implicate the facial validity of the judgment. Id.
The circuit court's decision to deny relief under section 16-90-111 will not be overturned unless the decision is clearly erroneous. Darrough v. State , 2020 Ark. 119, 2020 WL 1302242. A finding is clearly erroneous when, although...
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