Court Opinion

ID: 9880696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-28 15:03:52.156579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:57:10.464909
License: Public Domain

Cite as 2023 Ark. 129
                SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS
                                      No. CV-22-702

                                               Opinion Delivered:   September 28, 2023
 WILLIAM L. ANDREWS
                              APPELLANT PRO SE APPEAL FROM THE
                                        CHICOT COUNTY CIRCUIT
                                        COURT
 V.
                                        [NO. 09CV-22-44]

 DEXTER PAYNE, DIRECTOR,      HONORABLE ROBERT B. GIBSON
 ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF       III, JUDGE
 CORRECTION
                     APPELLEE AFFIRMED.

                  COURTNEY RAE HUDSON, Associate Justice

       Appellant William L. Andrews appeals from the denial of his petition and amended

petition for declaratory judgment and writ of mandamus wherein he alleged that the

Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC) illegally changed his discharge date from March

17, 2024, to January 10, 2025. The circuit court denied Andrews’s petition and amended

petition because Andrews had failed to state a claim for relief. We affirm.

       Between 2001 and 2006, Andrews pleaded guilty in eight cases to no fewer than ten

felony offenses, and suspended sentences were imposed for each offense. Andrews v. State,

No. CR-07-685 (Ark. App. Jan. 30, 2008) (unpublished). The conditions of the suspensions

included requirements that Andrews pay fines and restitution and that he not violate the

law. Id. In 2007, the State filed a petition to revoke the suspensions, alleging that Andrews
had failed to pay the ordered restitution and fines and that he had committed the additional

offense of rape. Id. After a hearing, the trial court found that Andrews had violated the

conditions of his suspended sentences, revoked the suspensions, and sentenced Andrews to

a total of seventeen years’ imprisonment. Id. The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed the

revocation of the suspended sentences. Id.

       According to his pleadings, after being sentenced to seventeen years’ imprisonment

in 2007, Andrews was paroled in June 2015. However, a warrant for his arrest was issued

on October 31, 2016, for a parole violation. Andrews was taken into custody almost a year

later on August 25, 2017. Andrews alleged in his petition and amended petition that after

revocation of his parole and his return to prison, he was informed that his discharge date

had been moved from March 17, 2024, to January 10, 2025.

       Andrews argued that the extension of his discharge date is illegal because it represents

a misapplication of parole statutes by excluding approximately 299 days of credit against his

sentence, which accumulated during the period of his disappearance while on parole. In his

amended petition, Andrews alternatively claimed that he should be given jail-time credit for

fifty-one days in January and February 2017, when he was in the custody and under the

control of two mental-health and rehabilitation centers. Andrews also argued in the brief in

support of his amended petition that he did not violate a condition of his probation by

absconding. The circuit court denied the petition for failure to state a claim for relief.

Andrews filed a timely appeal.

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       In this appeal, we must review the denial of Andrews’s petitions for declaratory

judgment and writ of mandamus. The clearly-erroneous standard of review is not necessarily

the standard for all declaratory-judgment actions. Appellate courts should not apply the

clearly-erroneous standard if review of the underlying basis for the declaratory action is

governed by another standard. Poff v. Peedin, 2010 Ark. 136, 366 S.W.3d 347.

       When a declaratory action is dismissed for failure to state a claim, the standard of

review is whether the circuit court abused its discretion. Wood v. Ark. Parole Bd., 2022 Ark.

30, 639 S.W.3d 340; see also Null v. Ark. Parole Bd., 2019 Ark. 50, 567 S.W.3d 482. An

abuse of discretion occurs when the court has acted improvidently, thoughtlessly, or without

due consideration. Wood, 2022 Ark. 30, 639 S.W.3d 340. Even though a motion to dismiss

was not filed in the instant case, the circuit court dismissed Andrews’s pleading when it

reviewed the face of the petition and concluded that the allegations contained therein failed

to state a claim for relief. In testing the sufficiency of Andrews’s petition for declaratory

relief, all reasonable inferences must be resolved in favor of the petition, and the pleadings

are to be liberally construed. Id. However, our rules require fact pleading, and a complaint

must state facts, not mere conclusions, to entitle the pleader to relief. Muntaqim v. Payne,

2021 Ark. 162, 628 S.W.3d 162. We treat only the facts alleged in the complaint as true,

but not theories, speculation, or statutory interpretation. Wood, 2022 Ark. 30, 639 S.W.3d

340. Likewise, the standard of review on a denial of a writ of mandamus is whether the

circuit court abused its discretion. Rogers v. Kelley, 2020 Ark. 403, 611 S.W.3d 476. For the

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reasons stated below, the facts alleged in Andrews’s petitions fail to state a legal basis for

relief.

          The claims raised by Andrews in his petitions and on appeal involve the application

of parole statutes in that Andrews claims that the ADC, through director Payne, illegally

extended his prison term by misapplying parole statutes that he claimed had been repealed.

Andrews further claimed that he did not violate a condition of his parole by absconding and

that he was in the custody of mental-health facilities during a portion of the time he was

missing.

          Declaratory and mandamus relief may be appropriate if the ADC has acted ultra vires,

has acted beyond its legal authority, or has failed to adhere to a parole statute. Harmon v.

Noel-Emsweller, 2022 Ark. 26. Even if Andrews’s allegations raised in the petitions are taken

as true and given all reasonable inferences, they fail to state facts that the ADC acted in

violation of the applicable parole statutes by excluding the 299 days as time served toward

his seventeen-year sentence.

          Claims pertaining to parole proceedings as fixed by statute fall clearly within the

domain of the ADC, which is part of the executive branch of government. Rainer v. State,

2022 Ark. 159, 651 S.W.3d 713. The parole board and its officers have the discretion to

revoke parole at any time if it is found by a preponderance of the evidence that the parolee

has failed to comply with the conditions of his or her parole. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-93-

705(a)(6) (Repl. 2016); Martz v. Felts, 2019 Ark. 297, 585 S.W.3d 675. The ADC has

jurisdiction to apply specific parole statutes once the sentence has been put into execution.

                                               4
Johnson v. State, 2012 Ark. 212. Here, the seventeen-year sentence had been put into

execution since 2007.

       Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-93-616(a)(2) (Repl. 2016) states in pertinent

part that “time served” shall continue only during the time the individual is actually confined

either in a county or local jail or under the custody and supervision of the ADC. The same

language was contained in Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-93-1303 (Repl. 2006),

which was repealed by Act 570 in July 2011.1 Therefore, the time Andrews was missing

from his place of residence and when he was in the custody of mental-health facilities does

not constitute time served under section 16-93-616. Moreover, Arkansas Code Annotated

section 16-93-705(a)(8) provides the parole board with the authority to determine whether

the time from issuance of a warrant for the arrest of a parolee until the time of arrest should

be counted as time served under the sentence. Thus, under the direction of Payne, the ADC

had the discretion to exclude 299 days from the time-served calculation and did not act

beyond its authority.

       Finally, Andrews’s allegation that he did not commit the crime of absconding because

it was not a condition of his parole represents a direct attack on the underlying basis for his

parole revocation. This court has treated civil proceedings such as declaratory-judgment

       1
        In his arguments in the circuit court and on appeal, Andrews maintained that section
16-93-1303 had been repealed, and the ADC did not have legal authority to extend his
discharge date. However, section 16-93-1303 and its language had been replaced by section
16-93-616. In any event, parole eligibility is determined by the law in effect when the crime
is committed. Waller v. Kelley, 2016 Ark. 252, 493 S.W.3d 757.

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actions as applications for postconviction relief when a prisoner seeks relief from the

conditions of his or her incarceration. Whitney v. Guterres, 2018 Ark. 133. A direct attack

on a judgment is not cognizable in postconviction proceedings. White v. State, 2021 Ark.

198, 632 S.W.3d 306. Andrews’s claim challenging his conviction for violating the

conditions of his parole is not cognizable in this action for declaratory relief.

       By failing to establish a right to declaratory relief, Andrews fails to provide a basis for

a writ of mandamus. Waller, 2016 Ark. 252, 493 S.W.3d 757. Therefore, the circuit court

did not abuse its discretion when it denied Andrews’s petitions for declaratory judgment

and writ of mandamus.

       Affirmed.

       WOMACK, J., dissents.

       SHAWN A. WOMACK, Justice, dissenting. Appellant’s request for relief is barred

by article 5, section 20 of the Arkansas Constitution.1 Because there is not an express

constitutional provision that allows the State to be a defendant in this context, dismissal is

proper.2 For the reasons set forth in my dissent in Perry v. Payne, I respectfully dissent.3

       William L. Andrews, pro se appellant.

       Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: Joseph Karl Luebke, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.

       1
           See, e.g., Perry v. Payne, 2022 Ark. 112, at 5 (Womack, J., dissenting).
       2
           Id.
       3
           Id.

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