Opinion highlights for the week of November 16, 2025

The Arkansas Court of Appeals announced fifteen decisions on November 19, 2025.  The Arkansas Supreme Court handed down four opinions the next day.  Three cases are noted here.

In Tate v. State, 2025 Ark. 186, Tate argued on appeal that the cumulative effect of alleged errors in admitting evidence affected his trial.  The Supreme Court found that this argument was not preserved for review.

[A]n appellant asserting a cumulative-error argument must show that there were objections to the alleged errors individually and that a cumulative-error objection was made to the trial court and a ruling obtained.  The record reflects that Tate did not make a cumulative-error objection at trial and did not obtain a ruling.  We will therefore not consider the argument.

Id. at 14.  This is useful guidance on preserving a cumulative-error argument for appeal, although the opinion does not specify when the cumulative-error objection itself must be made at trial.

The Court of Appeals remanded the case to settle and supplement the record in Criswell v. State, 2025 Ark. App. 563.  The court was concerned about the legality of Criswell's sentence in this revocation case.  There were two counts against Criswell; the original sentencing order and the revocation sentencing order both reflected that a habitual-offender enhancement applied to one count, but not the other.

The problem was that, without the sentencing enhancement applied to the other count, Criswell's sentences - both originally and upon revocation, as to this count - were too long, and thus illegal. 

 

While the failure to check the habitual-offender box for Criswell’s possession-of-a-controlled-substance charge on both sentencing orders may well have been a mere clerical error, we do not make that decision ourselves. In Jacobs v. State, 2023 Ark. App. 21, we were presented with similar questions regarding the factual bases for the circuit court’s imposition of an extended term of imprisonment. In that case, we remanded the matter to the circuit court with instructions for it to settle the question as to what, if any, clerical errors existed as to the sentencing order and to correct the sentencing order nunc pro tunc if clerical errors were found to exist.

Criswell, 2025 Ark. App. 563, at 4.  The case was remanded to settle the record by ensuring proper application of the sentencing enhancement and to correct any errors.

Finally, in Minor Child v. State, 2025 Ark. App. 552, the Court of Appeals considered whether the notice of appeal properly designated the order appealed.  The notice stated that MC appealed the October 25 "deemed denial" of a post-trial motion; in fact, an order had been entered on October 11 denying that motion.

The court noted a Supreme Court holding: "The supreme court has held that when it is clear what order the appellant is appealing from given the issues raised in the notice of appeal, an inaccurate date listed for the order appealed from in the notice of appeal is merely scrivener's error." Id. at 4.  After referencing a couple of its own cases, the court concluded:

 

 Here, appellant’s amended notice of appeal did not specifically identify the October 11 order denying his motion, but it was timely as to that order and stated that he was appealing the denial of his motion. We hold that the notice of appeal is effective to appeal the denial of his motion.

Id. at 4.

Thank you for reading.