Court Opinion

ID: 9773720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:56:29.667966+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:56.780799
License: Public Domain

Robert L. Brown, Justice, concurring. I concur in this opinion but write to emphasize that I would not consider the abstract in this case to be flagrantly deficient under Supreme Court Rule 4-2 merely because the judgment and commitment order for Houston Williams was erroneously described. Furthermore, even if the judgment and commitment order had not been abstracted, I would not consider the abstract to be fatal to this appeal. The abstract in the Houston Williams brief contains the jury verdict and the sentencing by the trial court. Neither the judgment nor sentence is at issue in this appeal. This situation is unlike the civil cases cited by the majority where the judgment or order appealed from was essential to what the trial court had found, concluded, and ordered. See Jewell v. Miller County Election Comm’n, 327 Ark. 153, 936 S.W.2d 754 (1997); Winters v. Elders, 324 Ark. 246, 920 S.W.2d 833 (1996); Jolly v. Hartje, 294 Ark. 16, 740 S.W.2d 143 (1987). To be sure, an abstracted judgment or order can be essential in a criminal appeal. We have affirmed for lack of material evidence when the issue was revocation of a probationary sentence for battery and where the underlying conviction was not abstracted. See Wallace v. State, 326 Ark. 376, 931 S.W.2d 113 (1996). We have also affirmed where the criminal appellant merely listed titles of pleadings and relevant evidence. See, eg., King v. State, 325 Ark. 313, 925 S.W.2d 159 (1996); Harrison v. State, 300 Ark. 439, 779 S.W.2d 536 (1989). We have also affirmed under Supreme Court Rule 4-2 where the abstract in the criminal case failed to include “testimony, arguments, rulings, instructions, jury’s findings, or the judgment of conviction.” Moore v. State, 325 Ark. 468, 929 S.W.2d 149 (1996). Also, in a case involving the issue of jury selection under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), we affirmed under Rule 4-2 when the information, judgment and commitment order, notice of appeal, and information about the composition of the venire, the final jury panel, and defendant’s use of peremptory challenges were all omitted. See Mayo v. State, 324 Ark. 328, 920 S.W.2d 843 (1996). We have also affirmed in cases collaterally attacking a judgment of conviction where neither the petition nor trial court order was abstracted. See, eg., Jackson v. State, 316 Ark. 509, 872 S.W.2d 400 (1994) (per curiam); Wilson v. State, 306 Ark. 179, 810 S.W.2d 337 (1991). Nevertheless, we have not gone so far as to affirm under Rule 4-2 where the absence of the judgment and commitment order form is the sole deficiency, where that judgment is not at issue in the appeal, and where the conviction and sentence can be gleaned from other parts of the abstract. I disagree with any suggestion that we might do so in future appeals, and for that reason I concur. Glaze, J., joins.