Opinion highlights for the week of January 12, 2025

 

The Arkansas Court of Appeals issued eighteen decisions on Wednesday.  As of this posting, I have not seen a docket issued by the Supreme Court.  There are three Court of Appeals decisions noted below.

The court addressed the record necessary for review of a matter subject to an Anders brief in Mouse v. State, 2025 Ark. App. 1.  The rule is that the court "must have the entire record of the circuit court proceedings to be able to properly review a criminal case that is presented to us in an Anders no-merit format." Id. at 1.  Although the entire record was designated in the notice of appeal, the record presented lacked the voir dire of prospective jurors.  The court also noted a potential issue not discussed in the Anders brief.  The court remanded the case to settle and supplement the record.

One of the issues raised in Roberson v. Loy Ray Wagoner Trust, et al., 2025 Ark. App. 4, involved mootness: was the appeal moot because the appellant had already paid the judgment against it?  "When an appellant voluntarily pays a judgment, any appeal of the judgment by the appellant becomes moot." Id. at 5.  One important factor in determining voluntariness is whether the appellant posted a supersedeas bond at the time it satisfied the judgment.  Here, the trial court ordered a release of funds held in the court's registry too promptly after the final order for the appellant to file a notice of appeal, secure a bond, and post it.  Thus, the judgment was not voluntarily paid, so the appeal was not moot.

Finally, the court noted an inadequate "Statement of the Case" in Lewis v. Lewis, 2025 Ark. App. 8.  The discussion is in note 1 on page two of the opinion.  The statement of the case addressed procedural highlights, but not the facts of the matter.  This did not comply with Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-2(a)(6), which requires a concise statement of the case and the facts.  The court noted that the appellee did provide the underlying facts as permitted by Rule 4-2(b).

Comments are always welcome!