Court Opinion

ID: 9883950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:27:26.756307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:33.787870
License: Public Domain

John A. Fogleman, Justice, dissenting. I must dissent because I think the court has misconstrued the Habitual Criminal Act as to the probationary sentence. This act is highly penal and must be strictly construed against the state and in favor of the accused. Higgins v. State, 235 Ark. 153, 357 S.W. 2d 499. Otherwise, I would agree that the statute might possibly be construed as the majority has construed it. But if the strict construction rule is applied, the very language of the statute mandates a construction more favorable to appellant. Actually the Habitual Criminal Act imposes collateral consequences just as did the statutes involved in State Medical Board v. Rodgers, 190 Ark. 266, 79 S.W. 2d 83; Tucker v. State, 248 Ark. 979, 455 S.W. 2d 888; and Sutherland v. Arkansas Department of Insurance, 250 Ark. 903, 467 S.W. 2d 724. If there is any difference, a statute calling for greatly extended terms of imprisonment may well call for an interpretation more, rather than less, favorable to appellant. But this is mandated by the very language of the act itself. The language seized upon by the majority, “punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary,” is not a limitation on the word “conviction.” The purpose is to eliminate misdemeanors. The meaning of the word conviction is made clear by Ark. Stat. Ann. § 43-2330 (Repl. 1964) which speaks to that which must be proved as a prior conviction, i.e., the “conviction and judgment of imprisonment in the penitentiary.” There could be no other reason for including the words “judgment of imprisonment in the penitentiary.”