Thompson v. State, 2016 Ark. 380

James Ray Thompson was convicted by a jury in 2010 of two counts of rape and sentenced to consecutive 120-month terms; the Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed.
Thompson previously filed a timely Rule 37.1 postconviction petition; the trial court denied relief and this court affirmed in 2013.
On June 8, 2016, Thompson filed a pro se petition under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-90-111 seeking correction of an allegedly illegal sentence.
The trial court treated the filing as a challenge to the sentence and also as a possible successive Rule 37.1 petition, then denied relief.
The Supreme Court of Arkansas found Thompson’s asserted errors were trial or appellate errors (or successive Rule 37 claims), not facially illegal sentences, and dismissed the appeal as without merit.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Thompson’s sentence was illegal on its face	Jury instructions and verdict forms allowed conviction on uncharged or multiple means, making sentence illegal	Sentence fell within statutory limits; claims are trial/appellate or successive Rule 37 issues, not facially illegal	Denied — sentence not illegal on its face; appeal dismissed
Whether § 16-90-111 allows collateral challenge at any time for these claims	§ 16-90-111 permits correction when sentence is illegal (so could be used)	Section only allows anytime challenge where sentence is illegal on its face; other claims are governed by Rule 37	Denied — statute applies only to facially illegal sentences; Thompson’s claims were not of that type
Whether the petition was a successive Rule 37.1 filing	Thompson styled petition under § 16-90-111 but raised Rule 37 issues, so should be considered successive	Rule 37 bars successive petitions unless leave was granted; Thompson had no leave	Denied — treated as successive Rule 37 matters and barred
Whether defective jury instructions or insufficiency of charging instrument implicate jurisdiction	Thompson argued these defects made sentence/judgment invalid/jurisdictional	Court: such defects are trial error, not jurisdictional; should have been raised at trial or on direct appeal	Denied — such errors do not implicate subject-matter jurisdiction and are not grounds for § 16-90-111 relief

Halfacre v. State, 460 S.W.3d 282 (Ark. 2015) (§ 16-90-111 survives to permit challenges when sentence illegal on its face)
Sawyer v. State, 327 Ark. 421, 938 S.W.2d 843 (Ark. 1997) (insufficiency of information is not a jurisdictional defect)
Atkins v. State, 441 S.W.3d 19 (Ark. 2014) (constitutional or trial error claims are not within § 16-90-111)
Williams v. State, 479 S.W.3d 544 (Ark. 2016) (trial court’s denial of § 16-90-111 relief reviewed for clear error; petitioner must show sentence illegal)