Opinion highlights for the week of March 29, 2026

 

Spring Break is over.  On April 1, 2026, the Arkansas Court of Appeals handed down eighteen decisions.  On April 2, 2026, the Arkansas Supreme Court did not hand down any decisions.  Let's take a look at three of those Court of Appeals decisions.

In Toney v. State, 2026 Ark. App. 197, Toney challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support her lesser-included second-degree murder and first-degree battery convictions.  She argued that there was insufficient evidence that she acted as an accomplice.  The Court of Appeals opined that she failed to preserve her arguments on appeal.

While it is not necessary to specifically state the lesser-included offense by name, the elements of that lesser-included offense must be addressed in the directed-verdict motion. Neither of the elements addressed by Toney are elements of the crimes of which she was convicted. Furthermore, none of the arguments below preserved the arguments raised on appeal regarding lack of evidence to prove that Toney was an accomplice. Accordingly, Toney has failed to preserve her challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence of either offense.

Id. at 5 (citations omitted).

Rebriefing was ordered in Mumtaz Mf v. Lindsey, 2026 Ark. App. 214.  The Court of Appeals noted "briefing deficiencies" that left it "unable to reach the merits of appellant's arguments...." Id. at 1.  These deficiencies under Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-2(a) included:

• a brief cover that displayed an incorrect case number and failed to include attorney contact information;
• a jurisdictional statement that did not comply with Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 1-2 by stating which appellate court should hear the appeal;
• a one-page statement of the case and the facts that was argumentative, provided little to no factual or procedural information, and lacked record citations; and
• an argument section with improperly placed standards of review, case citations not in the format required by Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 5-2(d), and the use of at least two opinions that were not designated for publication issued before July 1, 2009.

The court could raise the issue of deficiencies sua sponte, at any time; the mandatory language of Rule 4-2 required doing so here.

Finally, Scallion v. State, 2026 Ark. App. 207, offers guidance for preserving a corroboration challenge.  Scallion argued the State failed to provide sufficient evidence to corroborate her co-defendant's testimony linking her to the murder.  The Court of Appeals determined that this argument was not preserved.

"In order to preserve an accomplice-corroboration challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence for appellate review, a defendant must either have the trial court declare a witness to be an accomplice as a matter of law or submit the issue to the jury." Id. at 5.  Stallings never asked the trial court to declare her co-defendant to be an accomplice as a matter of law, and the trial court never did so.  Nor did she ask the jury to decide the matter, even though two model jury instructions were available for this purpose.  "Because Scallion failed to have [her co-defendant] declared an accomplice as a matter of law or to have the jury instructed on the issue, her claim is barred." Id. at 6.

Thank you for reading.