Echols v. State

686 S.W.3d 790

2024 Ark. 61

Damien ECHOLS, Appellant

v.STATE of Arkansas, Appellee

No. CR-22-670

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Opinion Delivered: April 18, 2024

APPEAL FROM THE CRITTENDEN COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 18CR-93-516], HONORABLE TONYA ALEXANDER, JUDGE

Conner & Winters, LLP, Fayetteville, by: John R. Elrod and Kerri E. Kobbeman; Law Offices of Patrick J. Benca, Little Rock, by: Patrick J. Benca; and Bracewell, LLP, by: Stephen L. Braga, of counsel, for appellant.

Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by. Nicholas J. Bronni, Solicitor Gen.; Dylan L. Jacobs, Deputy Solicitor Gen.; and Brooke Jackson Gasaway, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for apellee.

KAREN R. BAKER, Associate Justice

₁Appellant, Damien Echols, appeals from an order entered by the Crittenden County Circuit Court denying his Act 1780 petition for a lack of jurisdiction on the basis that Echols was not in State custody. Echols presents two points on appeal: (1) the circuit court erred by misinterpreting the plain and unambiguous language of Act 1780, which identifies who is jurisdictionally entitled to make a motion for relief under that Act; or (2) alternatively, assuming arguendo that the operative language of Act 1780 is ambiguous, the circuit court erred in failing to apply established principles of statutory interpretation to accurately determine the meaning of that language. We reverse and remand.

I. Facts and Procedural History

The appeal before us stems from Echols’s pursuit of exoneration. Echols has been before this court in connection with the "West Memphis Three" case on numerous occasions.¹ In ₂1993, three eight- year-old boys were found murdered in West Memphis. See Echols v. State, 326 Ark. 917, 936 S.W.2d 509 (1996). Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were ultimately convicted of the murders, and Echols was sentenced to death. Id. In Echols’s preceding appeal, we explained that

In 2002, while his other petitions for postconviction relief were pending, Echols filed a motion in the circuit court for DNA testing under Arkansas Code Annotated section 16–112–202 (Supp. 2001). The circuit court entered a testing order on June 2, 2004, after the parties agreed to the terms of the order. On February 23, 2005, an amended order for DNA testing was entered. The DNA testing was conducted between December 2005 and September 2007.

The results of the testing established that neither Echols, Baldwin, nor Misskelley was the source of any of the biological material tested, which included a foreign allele from a penile swab of victim Steven Branch; a hair from the ligature used to bind victim Michael Moore; and a hair recovered from a tree stump, near where the bodies were recovered. In addition, the DNA material from the hair found in the ligature used to bind Moore was found to be consistent with Terry Hobbs, Branch’s stepfather. The hair found on the tree stump was consistent with the DNA of David Jacoby, a friend of Terry Hobbs.

On April 14, 2008, Echols filed a motion for a new trial pursuant to section 16-112-201 and 208(e)(3). On September 10, 2008, without holding an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court entered an order denying the motion for a new trial. Echols then filed a timely notice of appeal in this court.

Echols v. State, 2010 Ark. 417, at 3–4, 373 S.W.3d 892, 895–96 (footnote omitted).

We reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing, holding that the circuit court had erroneously interpreted Arkansas Code Annotated sections 16-112-201 through -208 and ordered the circuit court to reconsider Echols’s motion for a new trial in light of the proper interpretation of the statutes. Id. at 15–16, 373 S.W.3d at 902. After the case was remanded, a resolution was negotiated between the State, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley, pursuant to ₃which Echols and the other defendants would enter a plea in accordance with North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970). On August 19, 2011, Echols entered an Alford plea and was released from prison, receiving a time-served sentence plus an additional ten years’ suspended imposition of sentence. In accordance with the Alford plea, Echols continued to maintain his innocence.

Beginning in 2020, Echols engaged in communications with then-prosecutor Scott Ellington regarding the prospect of performing additional DNA testing of certain evidence using the M-Vac® wet-vacuum-based collection method ("M-Vac"), a new DNA-collection method that was not available when DNA testing had previously been conducted in the case.² By 2021, no additional DNA testing had been conducted, and Keith Chrestman was appointed to replace Ellington as the prosecutor for the Second Judicial District. Chrestman informed Echols that Echols would have to petition the court for permission in order to move forward with the DNA testing, but he assured Echols that he had asked the West Memphis Police Department ("WMPD") to catalogue the remaining evidence in the case. In 2021, Echols filed a lawsuit against the WMPD under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act after he had learned that certain key evidence in the case might have been lost or destroyed. The ligatures used to bind the victims were ultimately located at the WMPD.

₄On January 24, 2022, Echols filed a petition to conduct additional DNA testing under Act 1780 of 2001, as amended by Act 2250 of 2005 and codified at Arkansas Code Annotated sections 16-112-201 to - 208 (Repl. 2016) (hereinafter referred to collectively as "Act 1780"). Specifically, Echols sought further forensic DNA testing of the ligatures using the new M-Vac DNA-collection technology. Echols stated that the ligatures had yielded important biological material in prior rounds of DNA testing and that this new technology could collect subsurface DNA—which would not belong to Echols—that might serve to identify the true perpetrator(s) in the case. The State responded, in pertinent part, that Echols was not entitled to relief under Act 1780 because his petition was for a writ of habeas corpus, and when the State has no one in custody to bring to court, habeas corpus is not an available remedy. Echols responded that the plain language of Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-112-202 provides that a person convicted of a crime may make a motion for the performance of forensic DNA testing, or other tests that may become available through advances in technology, to demonstrate the person’s actual innocence. See Ark. Code Ann. § 16-112-202. Therefore, Echols argued, the legislature worded the statute so that one’s ability to make a motion is triggered by being convicted of a crime as opposed to being in State custody.

On June 23, 2022, the circuit court held a hearing on Echols’s Act 1780 petition. The circuit court framed the issue for the parties as follows: "[f]irst being, this is a Habeas Corpus Statute. Habeas Corpus literally means, ‘Bring the Prisoner Forth.’ Can an individual who is lawfully at liberty claim relief under a Habeas Corpus Statute, is the first hurdle that needs to be cleared." The circuit court reasoned that Arkansas Code Annotated sections 16-112-201 through -208 involve habeas corpus relief because those statutes are codified in "Title 16, Practice, Procedure, and Courts; Subtitle 7, Particular Proceedings and Remedies; Chapter 112, ₅Habeas Corpus." Echols argued that the statutes carve out an actual-innocence exception to traditional habeas corpus relief that allows a person convicted of a crime the opportunity to exonerate himself and that DNA evidence had been uncovered in the past that suggested someone else was likely responsible for the murders in this case. Echols explained that he was not asking for release in accordance with common law or traditional habeas corpus; rather, he was seeking additional DNA testing under the exception set forth in sections 16-112-201 through -208. The State responded that the legislature had intended sections 16-112-201 through -208 to be a form of habeas corpus relief and that this court has said that habeas corpus relief is not available to a person, such as Echols, that is not in State custody. The circuit court orally denied Echols’s petition at the conclusion of the hearing, reasoning that "all of this falls under Habeas. This court cannot carve out an exception that does not lawfully and legally exist." The circuit court further explained that habeas relief is intended for those who are not at liberty and "the case law leads to this conclusion."

On June 28, 2022, the circuit court entered a written order denying Echols’s Act 1780 petition. The circuit court reasoned that

[o]ur General Assembly did not make scientific testing based on new technology an independent form of post-conviction relief. Instead, the legislature amended statutory law to make scientific testing based on new technology a form of habeas corpus relief. Ark. Code Ann. §§ 16-112-101-16-112-208 (codifying Act 1780 of 2001, §§ 3-9; Act 2250 of 2005, §§ 2-4).

[1] When a petitioner is not in custody, the circuit court does not have jurisdiction to grant habeas corpus relief. Curtis v. Hobbs, 2015 Ark. 127, at 1, 2015 WL 1331340; Branning v. Harmon, 2009 Ark. 533, at 2, 2009 WL 3488406.

The Court finds that [Echols] is not in custody. So the Court has no jurisdiction to grant him habeas corpus relief. Therefore, the Court must deny his Act 1780 habeas corpus request.

₆This timely appeal followed.

II. Points on Appeal

A. Preliminary Issues

Before we turn to the merits of Echols’s appeal, we take the opportunity to address three procedural arguments raised by the State.

1. Subject-matter jurisdiction

We must first address the threshold issue of subject-matter jurisdiction. The State argues that the circuit court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Echols’s petition, and as a result, this court now lacks jurisdiction over this appeal. The State contends that Echols filed his petition in the Crittenden County Circuit Court and the petition should therefore be dismissed because,...