Wallace v. State, 2016 Ark. 400

In 2002 Wallace was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and sentenced as a habitual offender to 480 months; the Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed on direct appeal.
Key trial evidence: eyewitness Sam Thomas implicated Wallace; a recorded statement by the victim said Wallace had threatened him; defense theory was that others committed the killing.
Defense sought witnesses Tatum (Demetrius Spencer) and "Big Six" (Kenneth Jordan). Jordan testified that Thomas admitted killing the victim; Spencer was unavailable at trial and later gave a statement contradicting Thomas.
After trial, defense counsel learned of Spencer’s post-shooting statement and moved for a new trial alleging a Brady violation; motion denied.
Wallace filed multiple pro se petitions to reinvest jurisdiction to pursue writs of error coram nobis alleging Brady violations, newly discovered evidence, third-party confessions, and ineffective assistance; prior petitions were denied.
This third petition reasserted prior claims and added new affidavits but did not present new facts sufficient to distinguish it from earlier petitions; the Supreme Court dismissed it as an abuse of the writ.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Wallace)	Defendant's Argument (State)	Held
Brady/exculpatory evidence withheld	Failure to disclose Spencer/Thomas plea/deal prejudiced trial; would have impeached Thomas	No suppression of admissible material; any contradiction was collateral and not prejudicial	Denied — Wallace failed to show materiality/prejudice under Brady/Strickler/Bagley
Denial of continuance to find Spencer	Wallace sought more time to locate Spencer, whose statement was exculpatory	Trial court did not abuse discretion; Spencer’s potential testimony was collateral	Denied — no reversible error; testimony would not have altered outcome
Third-party confessions/newly discovered evidence	Affidavits and later statements implicate others (Brown, Salley, Spencer, "Blue Boy") and show innocence	Affidavits only challenge credibility; recantations or late confessions are not cognizable on coram nobis after affirmance	Denied — coram nobis limited, third-party confession claims must be raised before affirmance; affidavits insufficient
Successive coram-nobis petitions	Reasserting same claims with similar affidavits shows newly discovered facts	Repetitious petitions are abuse of the writ absent new distinguishing facts	Dismissed as abuse of the writ; due process does not require entertaining unlimited successive petitions

Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (Brady rule on state's duty to disclose exculpatory evidence)
Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263 (three-element test for Brady materiality and prejudice)
United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667 (reasonable-probability standard for impeachment evidence)
Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419 (Brady/Kyles framework for materiality and disclosure)
Newman v. State, (Ark.) 2009 Ark. 539 (procedure for reinvesting trial court with jurisdiction to consider coram-nobis)
Brown v. State, 330 Ark. 627 (limits on third-party confession claims and timing)
Lee v. State, 340 Ark. 504 (application of reasonable-probability standard in Arkansas)
Wallace v. State, 2015 Ark. 349 (Wallace III) (coram-nobis claim limits; ineffective assistance not cognizable in coram-nobis)
Howard v. State, 2012 Ark. 177 (scope and rarity of coram-nobis; permitted categories of relief)
Jackson v. State, 2016 Ark. 294 (successive petitions and abuse of the writ)