Ray Thornton

In Shelnutt v. Laird, Alfred Shelnutt sued Melba and Max Laird for tortious interference with a contract, claiming that the Lairds had induced Don McMann to breach his reciprocal will agreement with his late wife Dixie McMann, thereby diminishing the estate that would have passed to Shelnutt as a third-party beneficiary and causing the estate to incur substantial legal fees. The trial court dismissed the complaint on multiple grounds, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed solely on statute-of-limitations grounds. The court held that the Lairds’ allegedly interfering acts—drafting a new will, transferring assets into trusts, and contesting the original will—were completed no later than November 8, 1999, when Melba Laird filed the will contest, so the three-year limitations period began then and had expired by the time Shelnutt filed suit in April 2003. The court rejected Shelnutt’s argument that the tort was continuing or that damages were not ascertainable until later, noting that he had cited no authority for a continuing-tort theory in this context and that damages could have been calculated when the will contest was filed.

torts & liabilitypropertyfamily lawprocedure

The case involved Beverly Maxwell's conviction after a bench trial for criminal attempt to obtain prescription drugs by fraud, based on evidence that she or an associate called in a fake prescription for Darvocet and Phenergan at a pharmacy using a nonexistent nurse's name from a doctor who was out of state and had no record of the patients. Maxwell was sentenced to sixty months' probation as a habitual offender. On appeal, she challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and claimed ineffective assistance of trial counsel due to inadequate discovery and allowing her son to testify. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the sufficiency challenge was not preserved because counsel failed to renew the motion for dismissal at the close of all evidence as required by Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 33.1, and that the ineffectiveness claim could not be reviewed because it was not developed at trial or in a post-trial hearing but merely deemed denied after thirty days.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned the Arkansas Hearing Instrument Dispenser Board’s disciplinary action against licensee O.G. Vance for alleged unethical conduct in selling hearing aids, including pressuring a customer to buy on a specific date to use a coupon and making inconsistent claims about the quality of programmable versus non-programmable devices. The circuit court reversed the Board’s findings for lack of substantial evidence and due-process violations, but the Arkansas Supreme Court reviewed the Board’s decision directly under the Administrative Procedure Act. The court held that the customer’s testimony provided substantial evidence supporting the Board’s factual findings and that the statute’s prohibition on “unethical conduct” was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to regulated business activity. The court also found the challenge to the Board’s sanctioning discretion moot because no monetary penalty, suspension, or revocation had been imposed. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the circuit court and affirmed the Board.

business & regulatoryprocedure

In Pratt v. State, Thomas Lee Pratt was convicted of raping a three-year-old child based on the victim's statements to others and his own confession to police after waiving Miranda rights. On appeal, Pratt challenged the denial of his motion for a directed verdict, the admission of the child's statements without cross-examination, and the trial court's refusal to instruct the jury on sexual indecency with a child as a lesser-included offense of rape. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that Pratt's general directed-verdict motion failed to specify any deficient element of the offense and thus waived the sufficiency challenge under Ark. R. Crim. P. 33.1. The court further reasoned that sexual indecency with a child requires proof of additional elements, such as the defendant's age and solicitation of the victim, that are not necessary for rape, so it is not a lesser-included offense under Ark. Code Ann. § 5-1-110(b).

criminal lawprocedure

In Johnson v. State, appellant Johnny Johnson appealed his convictions for first-degree murder and arson after a jury found him guilty of killing Johnny Archer, burning his trailer home, and receiving consecutive sentences of life imprisonment and twenty years. Johnson argued that the evidence was insufficient, that statements he made to fellow inmates should have been suppressed, that the convictions rested on uncorroborated accomplice testimony, and that autopsy photographs were improperly admitted. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding that substantial evidence—including inmate testimony about Johnson's confessions and expert testimony on the fire—supported the verdicts, that several claims were not preserved or lacked supporting authority, and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the photographs to help explain the cause-of-death determination.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a challenge to appellant Bobby Jones's eligibility to seek a position on the Helena-West Helena School Board and the Phillips County Circuit Court's order directing that he not be certified as the winner of the September 16, 2003 election. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's decision. The court held that Jones's brief, abstract, and addendum remained insufficient under Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-2 even after he was given an opportunity to cure the deficiencies by filing substituted materials, which prevented review of the underlying issues including whether the challenge was pre-election or moot. The court therefore affirmed for noncompliance with the rule rather than reaching the merits.

electionsprocedure