Cite as 2024 Ark. App. 309

ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS

DIVISION III

No. CR-23-506

MITCHELL STEVEN WINE

APPELLANT

V.

STATE OF ARKANSAS

APPELLEE

Opinion Delivered May 15, 2024

APPEAL FROM THE SALINE

COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT

[NO. 63CR-23-122]

HONORABLE CHARLES A.

YEARGAN, JUDGE

AFFIRMED

BRANDON J. HARRISON, Chief Judge

A Saline County jury convicted Mitchell Wine of one count of threatening a judicial 

official, Ark. Code Ann. § 5-53-202 (Supp. 2023), a Class C felony, and one count of 

harassing communications, Ark. Code Ann. § 5-71-209 (Supp. 2023), a Class A

misdemeanor. Wine represented himself at trial. The jury heard that in November 2022, 

Wine was the defendant in a criminal case assigned to Saline County Circuit Judge Brent 

Houston. November 2, Judge Houston issued a warrant for Wine’s arrest for violating a 

protective order. Around 1:30 the next morning, Judge Houston received two calls to his 

home phone. He picked up the first time and no one responded; the second time, he let it 

ring. 

When Judge Houston arrived at work later that morning, he found two emails in his 

official inbox from mitchwine@hotmail.com, an address he had used to correspond with 

Wine. The first, sent at 1:20 a.m., read:
2

You want me to come before you, boy? You’re a punk. Nothing more. If you 

want me incarcerated, why not come get me yourself? Fat-ass punk. Look at your 

piece of shit ass, boy. ‘I’m a fat ass punk who can’t protect my own ass.’ You lazy 

piece of shit.

The second, sent four minutes later, continued, “Open your mouth, fat boy. Open that 

mouth and see what you get.” 

The next day, Judge Houston realized the early-morning caller had left a voicemail: 

“Brent Houston, I’m going to come to your house sometime in the very near future. So, 

if you don’t want that to happen, you should call me back.” He recognized Wine’s voice. 

Wine admitted he sent the emails and left the voicemail. 

The State offered other testimony to show Wine was a serial threatener, so to speak. 

He warned an attorney for the State Board of Election Commissioners in an email, “[I]f I 

suspect you’re committing a felony, I will put my hands on you and place you under citizen’s 

arrest. The law requires I use non-lethal force (So long as you don’t fetch for the gun you 

state you always carry).” A second email began, “You’re still at [a residential address], 

correct?” It was the attorney’s home address. 

Wine threatened to make a citizen’s arrest of a director and member of the State 

Claims Commission after it denied a claim he had filed. He asserted authority to “pursu[e] 

them into their private residences in fresh pursuit . . . [with a] right to use deadly force” if 

he felt his life was threatened. The State introduced belligerent text messages Wine sent to 

Matt Campbell, an attorney who’d been appointed to represent him in a different case: 

“Fight me, boy. . . . I’m about to show up at your house. Soon. In fact, I’m there.” 

Campbell called police (and moved to withdraw) after Wine mentioned Campbell’s 

daughter in a voicemail. 
3

The jury returned a guilty verdict almost instantly. 

Wine challenges the sufficiency of the evidence that he “threatened to cause physical 

injury to a judicial official . . . or any member of a judicial official’s immediate family.” Ark. 

Code Ann. § 5-53-202(b)(2)(A). But he did not make that argument below. After the 

State rested, Wine stated, “I would like to move for a directed verdict on the felonies that 

I have been charged with.” When the court asked whether he wanted to make the motion 

outside the jury’s presence, Wine responded, “I’m sorry. Oh, I’ll testify.” He did not 

renew that request at the close of his own case. 

To preserve a sufficiency-of-evidence challenge, a defendant must specifically state 

the grounds for the directed verdict in the circuit court. Ark. R. Crim. P. 33.1(a) & (c). 

Wine asked for a directed verdict, but he did not offer the circuit court any reason it should 

grant him one. That does not preserve anything for appeal. See, e.g., Radford v. State, 2018 

Ark. App. 89, 538 S.W.3d 894.

Affirmed.

VIRDEN and BARRETT, JJ., agree.

The Cannon Law Firm, PLC, by: David R. Cannon, for appellant.

Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: Christopher R. Warthen, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.