Court Opinion

ID: 9755416
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:37:39.690424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:07.207524
License: Public Domain

ROBERT L. BROWN, Justice, concurring. This appeal involves a sentence of life in prison. I concur with the majority on the merits of this appeal but write to emphasize my concern over the deficient performance of Field’s counsel in preparing appellant’s brief. On two separate occasions, the State filed motions regarding counsel’s deficient abstracting prior to the submission of the case. On December 6, 2001, the State first moved for this court to direct Fields to comply with Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-3(h). We granted that motion. On February 26, 2002, Field’s counsel advised this court that he was “standing by” his original brief. As a result, on March 1, 2002, the State filed a second motion to compel Field’s compliance with Rule 4-3 (h). We denied that motion, and ordered the State to abstract the adverse rulings, as the rule requires. The State did so, and the case has now been submitted for our decision. Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-3 (g) requires that in a felony case, it is the appellant’s duty to abstract and include in the addendum those parts of the record material to the points to be argued in the appellant’s brief. Rule 4-3 (h), which applies to death and life-imprisonment cases, dictates that the appellant “must abstract ... all rulings adverse to him or her made by the circuit court on all objections, motions and requests made by either party, together with such parts of the record as are needed for an understanding of each adverse ruling.” Appellant, in this case, did neither. He merely abstracted the testimony from the suppression hearing involving the photo lineup and the eyewitness identification testimony at trial. He failed to abstract his motion to suppress the photo lineup, the photo lineup itself, his motion for directed verdict, or the trial court’s rulings on the motions. Had the State not provided a supplemental abstract, per our order to abstract all adverse rulings not abstracted by the appellant pursuant to Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-3 (h), this court could not have reached the merits of this appeal and rebriefing would have been required. We still were never provided the actual photographs that made up the photo lineup as our rules require. See Sup. Ct. R. 4-2(a)(5). After reviewing the State’s supplemental abstract and the appellant’s abstract, it is evident that appellant’s counsel neglected his duty to properly abstract the record pursuant to our rules. For the foregoing reasons, I would refer defendant’s counsel to the Committee on Professional Conduct. See McGehee v. State, 327 Ark. 88, 937 S.W.2d 632 (1997) (per curiam). Glaze, J., joins.