Case Information
*1 SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS .
No. CR-16-475
Opinion Delivered December 8, 2016 DENNIS RAY MATTHEWS APPELLANT PRO SE APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT V.
[NO. 60CR-81-1233] STATE OF ARKANSAS HONORABLE WENDELL APPELLEE GRIFFEN, JUDGE
AFFIRMED.
PER CURIAM
In 1981, appellant Dennis Ray Matthews entered a plea of guilty to capital felony murder for which the underlying felony was aggravated robbery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The judgment was entered on January 5, 1982. On June 4, 2016, Matthews filed in the trial court a pro se petition for writ of error coram nobis. The trial court declined to issue the writ, and Matthews brings this appeal.
The standard of review of an order entered by the trial court on a petition for writ
of error coram nobis is whether the trial court abused its discretion in granting or denying
the writ.
Newman v. State
,
discretion in the denial of error-coram-nobis relief when the claims in the petition were
groundless.
Nelson
,
A writ of error coram nobis is an extraordinarily rare remedy.
State v. Larimore
, 341
Ark. 397,
The writ is allowed only under compelling circumstances to achieve justice and to
address errors of the most fundamental nature.
Id
. A writ of error coram nobis is available
for addressing certain errors that are found in one of four categories: (1) insanity at the time
of trial, (2) a coerced guilty plea, (3) mаterial evidence withheld by the prosecutor, or (4) a
third-party confession to the crime during the time between conviction and appeal.
Howard v. State
,
In his petition, Matthews stated the following two grounds for issuance of the writ: (1) he wаs mentally incompetent and awaiting a mental evaluation at the time he was
“forced” to enter his plea and was incapable of understanding the ramifications of a guilty plea; (2) he was coerced and threatened into changing his plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease to a plea оf guilty. Matthews did not support the claims in his petition with any facts or provide any substantiation or elucidation of the allegations, and he offered no explanation of how the claims would warrant issuance of a writ of error coram nobis. In his brief-in-chief and his reply brief, Matthews expands on his bare claims and provides information that was not contained in the petition that the trial court ruled on.
First, this court will not consider the new material contained in the briefs. We do
not addrеss new arguments raised for the first time on appeal or consider factual
substantiation added to bolster the allegations made below.
Thornton v. State
,
Matthews appended to his coram-nobis petition an affidavit in which he argued that his attorney when he entered his plea in 1981 did not competently represent him. The trial court ruled that the allegations raised in the corаm-nobis petition, while couched as claims for issuance of the writ, were actually allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel and thus did not state a ground for the writ. We agree. This court has held that claims of ineffective
assistance of counsel are not cognizable in a coram-nobis proceeding.
State v. Tejeda-Acosta
,
Next, the claims raised by Matthews in his petition asserting that he was not mentally
competent when he entered his plea in 1981 were devoid of facts to substantiate the claims.
The application for coram-nobis relief must make a full disclosure of specific facts relied on
as the basis for the writ.
Markus v. State
,
With respect to Matthews’s conclusory statement that he was “coerced and
threatеned” into pleading guilty, coercion is, as stated, one of the grounds on which the
writ may issue, but there was no claim that Matthews’s plea was the result of fear, duress, оr
threats of mob violence as previously recognized by this court as grounds for a finding of
coercion.
Oliver v. State
,
physical, moral, or economic force or threat of physical force.
See White v. State
, 2015 Ark.
151, at 5,
Moreover, there was no fact in Matthews’s petition with respect to either his claims
of coercion or his impaired mental state that he сould not have brought out at the time of
trial to demonstrate that he was coerced into pleading guilty or that he was not sane.
Matthews failed to show that there existed some fact—coercion or incompetence at the
time of the guilty plea—that would have prevented rendition of the judgment had it been
known to the trial court and that, through no negligence or fault of his, was not brought
forward before rendition of judgment.
Westerman v. State
,
Finally, Matthews filed his coram-nobis petition thirty-five years aftеr he had entered
his plea of guilty. Although there is no specific time limit for seeking a writ of error coram
nobis, due diligence is required in making an applicatiоn for relief.
Newman
, 2009 Ark.
539,
the writ, merely referring to incompetence as a ground for the writ without stating facts to support the claim does not constitute a showing that the petitioner has met the burden of proceeding with diligence. Matthews’s conclusory statements did not establish that he was diligent in filing his petition.
Because Matthews’s petition for writ of error coram nobis did not state a ground to
warrant issuance of the writ and he was not diligent in bringing the petition, the trial court
did not abuse its discretion in denying the petition.
See White
,
Affirmed.
Dennis Ray Matthews , pro se appellant.
Leslie Rutledge , Att’y Gen., by: Rebecca Bailey Kane , Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee