Case Title: Mackey v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: CR97-31-2

State: arkansas

Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Date: 1997-06-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
Jerry MACKEY v. STATE of Arkansas

CR 97-312                                          ___ S.W.2d ___

                    Supreme Court of Arkansas
                 Opinion delivered June 23, 1997


1.   Appeal & error -- contemporaneous-objection rule. -- A contemporaneous
     objection must be made to the trial court before the appellate
     court will review an alleged error on appeal.

2.   Appeal & error -- contemporaneous objection necessary to preserve issue
     whether prior convictions should have been considered in bench-trial
     sentencing phase. -- A contemporaneous objection is necessary to
     preserve the issue whether previous convictions should have
     been considered in the sentencing phase at a bench trial.

3.   Appeal & error -- appellant procedurally barred from appealing habitual-
     offender finding. -- While the supreme court does not require a
     directed-verdict motion for sufficiency of the evidence during
     the guilt phase of a bench trial, it does require a bench-
     trial contemporaneous objection to challenge the existence of
     prior convictions to establish habitual-offender status for
     the purpose of sentencing; where appellant made no
     contemporaneous objection challenging the existence of prior
     felonies, the supreme court held that he was procedurally
     barred from appealing the issue of the sufficiency of the
     evidence to support the habitual-offender finding; the supreme
     court affirmed the trial court's decision.

     Petition for Review from the Arkansas Court of Appeals; Court
of Appeals reversed; Trial Court affirmed.
     William R. Simpson, Jr., Public Defender, by:  C. Joseph
Cordi, Jr., Deputy Public Defender, for appellant.
     Winston Bryant, Att'y Gen., by:  Brad Newman, Asst. Att'y
Gen., for appellee.

     Ray Thornton, Justice.
     Appellant consented to a bench trial in the Pulaski County
Circuit Court and was convicted of residential burglary.  Pursuant
to Ark. Code Ann.  5-4-501 (Repl. 1993), the trial court found
that  appellant was an habitual offender with more than one but
less than four previous felony convictions and sentenced him to 108
months' imprisonment.  
     Appellant sought review from the court of appeals where he did
not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him;
rather, he claimed that there was insufficient evidence to support
the finding that he was an habitual offender and should receive an
enhanced sentence.  In a 4-2 opinion, the court of appeals reversed
and remanded the case for resentencing, asserting that this court
has ruled that a defendant is not required to make a
contemporaneous objection of any kind to preserve any issue in
cases where a bench trial is held.  In its opinion, the court of
appeals stated that the supreme court has, "essentially relieved
trial counsel of the duty to apprise the trial court of
deficiencies in the evidence, including missing elements of proof." 
Mackey v. State, 56 Ark. App. 164, 167, 939 S.W.2d 851 (1997).  
     In its petition for review, the State prays for supreme court
review and contends the court of appeals has misinterpreted our
rulings which are directly on point to this issue.     
     We conduct our review pursuant to Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 1-2(f) as
though the case had originally been appealed to this court, and we
conclude that the trial court's decision should be affirmed.
     Initially, we note that this appeal does not include a
challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the
conviction but only seeks to raise the issue whether the sentence
imposed on the appellant as an habitual offender was supported by
appropriate evidence that he had been convicted of multiple prior
felonies as required for sentencing him as an habitual offender.
     The court of appeals' majority opinion relied upon our
decision in Strickland v. State, 322 Ark. 312,