Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-14-02547/USCOURTS-ca8-14-02547-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Wendy Kelley
Appellee
Lynda King
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-2547

___________________________

Lynda King

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Wendy Kelley, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Pine Bluff

____________

 Submitted: March 13, 2015

 Filed: August 10, 2015

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Before MURPHY and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges, and HARPOOL, District 1

Judge.

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SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.

The Honorable M. Douglas Harpool, United States District Judge for the

1

Western District of Missouri, sitting by designation.

Appellate Case: 14-2547 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/10/2015 Entry ID: 4304098 
An Arkansas state trial court sentenced Lynda King to 80 years imprisonment

for embezzling more than $700,000 from the school district where she worked. Five

months after imposing the sentence, however, the trial court entered an order reducing

King’s sentence to 20 years imprisonment. The State appealed the reduction to the

Arkansas Supreme Court, which reinstated King’s 80-year sentence after finding the

trial court lacked jurisdiction to enter the reduction because the statutory period for

doing so had expired.

King later sought habeas relief from the federal district court. Although the 2

district court was clearly sympathetic to King’s cause, it nevertheless found no

grounds for granting habeas relief. The district court issued a certificate of

appealability and King has now brought her case to us, hoping we can find a ground

for relief the district court was unable to perceive. Because King is not entitled to

habeas relief based on her disagreement with the Arkansas Supreme Court’s

interpretation of Arkansas law, we affirm.

I.

This case began with King’s misdeeds. Between 2001 and 2008, King

embezzled over $700,000 from the Pine Bluff School District. As the district court

aptly put it, “she simply robbed the school district blind.” After her theft was

discovered, King pled guilty in Arkansas state court to 1,577 counts of forgery and

theft of property. 

Through a judgment entered March 31, 2009, and an amended judgment

entered April 3, 2009, the trial court imposed a sentence of 80 years imprisonment. 

King does not dispute that this sentence was within the applicable statutory range for

The Honorable Brian S. Miller, Chief Judge, United States District Court for

2

the Eastern District of Arkansas.

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Appellate Case: 14-2547 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/10/2015 Entry ID: 4304098 
her crimes. On June 15, 2009, King filed a petition in the trial court for a reduction

of sentence under Arkansas Code Annotated § 16-90-111, which allows a trial court

to “correct an illegal sentence at any time” or to “correct a sentence imposed in an

illegal manner within . . . ninety (90) days after the sentence is imposed.” King

claimed in her petition she was “entitled to a reduction of sentence on the grounds of

excessive sentencing.” R. Doc. 6-7, at 16. She noted she had no prior criminal

history and attached to her petition news clippings about other defendants who had

received lesser sentences for similar crimes. King also asserted in her petition she

“was forced to enter [her] plea because of threats made by the prosecutor, through

[her] attorney. These threats indicated that [her] husband and twenty-year old son

would be subpeona [sic] to testify and could be charged as well.” R. Doc. 6-7, at 16. 

On September 2, 2009, the trial court found King’s petition “ha[d] merit” and entered

an order reducing King’s sentence to 38 years imprisonment. On September 24,

2009, the trial court entered an amended order suspending 18 of those years, for a

total sentence of 20 years imprisonment.

The State appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court. In a per curiam opinion,

the Supreme Court vacated King’s reduced sentence and held that the original 80-year

sentence remained valid and enforceable. State v. King, 2010 Ark. 428 (per curiam). 

The Supreme Court found that King’s petition for reduction did not raise a claim for

relief under Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37, which allows a prisoner to

petition the sentencing court for a sentence modification “within ninety (90) days of

the date of entry of judgment” and contains no deadline for the sentencing court to

rule on the petition. The Supreme Court did not answer the State’s argument that

King’s petition fell outside section 16-90-111 because the petition failed to allege her

sentence was illegal or illegally imposed. Instead, the Supreme Court found that

“[e]ven if [section 16-90-111] embraced [King’s] claim, the trial court’s order did not

fall within the restrictions imposed in the statute for a valid order.” King, 2010 Ark.

428, at 3. In other words, the Supreme Court held that section 16-90-111 did not

apply because the trial court failed to enter the reduced sentence within the statute’s

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Appellate Case: 14-2547 Page: 3 Date Filed: 08/10/2015 Entry ID: 4304098 
90-day window. Reasoning that trial courts lose jurisdiction under Arkansas law to

alter sentences “absent a statute, rule, or available writ,” the Supreme Court

concluded the trial court lacked jurisdiction to reduce King’s sentence. Id. at 4.

King later petitioned the district court for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging

(1) the trial court had jurisdiction to modify her sentence, (2) the trial court’s failure

to render a decision within the statutory period violated her Fourteenth Amendment

right to due process, (3) the 80-year sentence violated the Eighth Amendment’s

prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, (4) her guilty plea was coerced,

(5) prosecutorial misconduct, and (6) ineffective assistance of counsel. The district

court expressed disagreement with the Arkansas Supreme Court’s opinion, stating

that the Supreme Court misapplied its own precedent and that it should have treated

King’s petition for reduction as a timely filed petition for relief under Rule 37. See

State v. Wilmoth, 255 S.W.3d 419, 422, 424 (Ark. 2007) (noting that the Arkansas

Supreme Court has held that any petition for post-conviction relief istreated as a Rule

37 petition if it raises claims for relief under the Rule and that the Rule 37 time period

controls over the section 16-90-111 time period). Ultimately, however, the district

court dismissed King’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, reluctantly concluding

“that King cannot obtain relief fromthisimproper sentence simply because of glitches

in Arkansas law and the Arkansas Supreme Court’s interpretation of that law.” The

district court granted a certificate of appealability on the question of whether King’s

due process rights were violated by the trial court’s delay in ruling or by the Arkansas

Supreme Court’s reinstatement of her original sentence.

II.

We first address the State’s argument that we lack jurisdiction to hear King’s

appeal. It is well established that in habeas proceedings we may review only final

orders. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(a) (“In a habeas corpus proceeding . . . before a district

judge, the final order shall be subject to review, on appeal . . . .”); Collins v. Miller,

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Appellate Case: 14-2547 Page: 4 Date Filed: 08/10/2015 Entry ID: 4304098 
252 U.S. 364, 365 (1920); Gray v. Swenson, 430 F.2d 9, 11 (8th Cir. 1970). The

State contends the district court’s order dismissing King’s habeas petition is not a

final order because the district court did not explicitly reject all of King’s claims for

relief. We disagree. 

The district court’s order mentioned all six of King’s asserted claims for relief

and concluded by dismissing King’s petition. While the substance of the district

court’s discussion related to the Arkansas Supreme Court’s opinion, it is clear the

district court’s “order on its face purports to dispose of all issuesraised by the habeas

corpus petition.” Gray, 430 F.2d at 11 (finding that the order appealed from was a

final order and that the court possessed jurisdiction). This case is unlike Stewart v.

Bishop, 403 F.2d 674 (8th Cir. 1968), upon which the State relies, where we held we

lacked jurisdiction because the order appealed from“[said nothing] whatsoever about

the dismissal or the rejection of any of the claims for relief asserted” and contained

no language “dismissing the petition or finally disposing of the issue.” Id. at 679. 

The district court’s order here “is the last word of the law, the final determination of

the matters submitted to [the district] court in [the] action.” Id. at 678 (internal

quotation marks omitted). Because the district court’s order “leaves nothing to be

done below [upon our affirmance] other than to execute the already rendered

judgment,” the order is final and we possess jurisdiction to hear King’s appeal. Id.

(internal quotation marks omitted); see 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

We next address the State’s argument that the district court improvidently

granted the certificate of appealability because King’s due process claim is collateral

to her detention and is thus not cognizable under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The State relies

on Jolly v. Gammon, 28 F.3d 51 (8th Cir. 1994), where we held that a petitioner’s due

process challenge to a state post-conviction proceeding did not present a cognizable

ground for federal habeas relief because the petition challenged a state proceeding

collateral to the petitioner’s detention and did not amount to “a constitutional

challenge of the detention itself.” Id. at 54; see also Williams-Bey v. Trickey, 894

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Appellate Case: 14-2547 Page: 5 Date Filed: 08/10/2015 Entry ID: 4304098 
F.2d 314, 317 (8th Cir. 1990) (“[A]n infirmity in a state post-conviction proceeding

does not raise a constitutional issue cognizable in a federal habeas petition.”). King,

however, has not challenged a state post-conviction proceeding collateral to her

detention. Her claim—that the state proceedingsthatresulted in her sentence violated

her due process rights—amounts to a constitutional challenge to her detention itself. 

This claim is cognizable in a section 2254 action. See Williams-Bey, 894 F.2d at 317

(“Habeas relief is available to a state prisoner ‘only on the ground that he is in

custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.’”

(quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a))).

Turning to the merits, King argues that the trial court violated her right to due

process when it failed to act within the section 16-90-111 time period and that the

Arkansas Supreme Court violated her right to due process because its opinion was

legally flawed. After considering these arguments, we agree with the district court 3

that King’s habeas petition must be dismissed. See Lyons v. Luebbers, 403 F.3d 585,

592 (8th Cir. 2005) (stating that we review the district court’s conclusions of law de

novo). King’s argument about what section 16-90-111 required the district court to

do raises a question of Arkansas state law that has already been resolved by the

Arkansas Supreme Court in this case. King’s argument about the Supreme Court’s

opinion similarly amounts to no more than an assertion that the Supreme Court acted

erroneously and misinterpreted Arkansas law. It is telling that the ground for relief

King asserted in her habeas petition was that the trial court possessed jurisdiction to

modify her sentence, not that the Supreme Court violated her due process rights. As

to both of King’s arguments, 28 U.S.C. § 2254 does not permit usto exercise de novo

review over a state court’s interpretation of state law. Because King does not present

a claim “that [she] is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of

We note that while King’s habeas petition asserted an Eighth Amendment

3

violation, her guilty plea was coerced, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective

assistance of counsel, none of these claims is before us on appeal.

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Appellate Case: 14-2547 Page: 6 Date Filed: 08/10/2015 Entry ID: 4304098 
the United States,” as required by section 2254, her claim does not present a valid

ground for habeas relief.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of habeasrelief.

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