Perry v. State, 453 S.W.3d 650

On April 15, 2012, Kiywuan Perry and his brother entered an El Chico restaurant armed, forced patrons/employees into a walk-in cooler, gunshots were fired, and waiter Jesus Herrera was fatally shot; money was stolen.
Perry was tried by a Pulaski County jury and convicted of capital murder and aggravated robbery; sentenced to consecutive life without parole and forty years.
At trial, three witnesses (Dobbins, Smith, Brooks) were considered by the court as accomplices (Dobbins as matter of law; Smith disputed; Brooks not an accomplice).
Perry moved only generally for a directed verdict at the close of evidence, without specifying deficiencies in the State’s proof.
Perry requested a disputed-accomplice instruction for Smith (given) and Brooks (denied), and proffered interrogatory verdict forms asking the jury to state whether Smith (and Brooks) were accomplices; the court denied submission of those verdict forms.
On appeal Perry argued (1) insufficiency of the evidence and (2) abuse of discretion in refusing his nonmodel interrogatory verdict form on accomplice status; the Supreme Court affirmed.

Issue	Perry's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of the evidence	Testimony of key witnesses was incredible; accomplice testimony insufficiently corroborated	Perry failed to preserve specific sufficiency grounds by not making a particularized directed-verdict motion	Not preserved; general directed-verdict motion inadequate, so appellate review of sufficiency waived
Submission of nonmodel interrogatory verdict re: accomplice status (Smith)	Jury should have been given a form to decide whether Smith was an accomplice, which would affect corroboration analysis	Court properly exercised discretion; Perry did not support the claim with authority or cogent argument	No reversible error; claim forfeited for lack of developed argument; model instruction was given and no necessary instruction was omitted

Maxwell v. State, 373 Ark. 553 (2008) (specific directed-verdict motion required to preserve sufficiency challenge)
Pinell v. State, 364 Ark. 353 (2005) (purpose of requiring specific grounds is to allow the State to cure missing proof)
Rounsaville v. State, 2009 Ark. 479 (2009) (general assertion that State failed to make prima facie case insufficient to preserve issue)
Eastin v. State, 370 Ark. 10 (2007) (same — non-specific directed-verdict motion does not preserve sufficiency claim)
Travis v. State, 328 Ark. 442 (1997) (directed-verdict motion must identify missing proof of elements)
Binemy v. State, 374 Ark. 232 (2008) (general directed-verdict motion inadequate to preserve appellate review)
Webb v. State, 327 Ark. 51 (1997) (appellate sufficiency review presupposes a proper objection below)
Love v. State, 281 Ark. 379 (1984) (standard for considering proffered nonmodel jury instructions)
Bond v. State, 374 Ark. 332 (2008) (circuit court not required to give nonmodel instruction even if correct statement of law)
Clark v. State, 374 Ark. 292 (2008) (review of instruction refusals for abuse of discretion)
Hale v. State, 343 Ark. 62 (2000) (assignments of error unsupported by argument/authority will not be considered)