Summary
The Arkansas Supreme Court denied Denver Mitchell Jr.'s pro se petition to reinvest jurisdiction in the trial court to consider a petition for writ of error coram nobis arising from his murder conviction. The court held that ineffective-assistance, actual-innocence, trial-error, sufficiency-of-the-evidence, credibility, and recanted-testimony claims were not cognizable in coram nobis proceedings, and that Mitchell failed to substantiate his Brady claims or demonstrate due diligence. Motions for appointment of counsel and to proceed in forma pauperis were deemed moot.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Mitchell established a basis for reinvesting the trial court with jurisdiction to consider a writ of error coram nobis.
- Whether ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, actual-innocence and sufficiency challenges, alleged trial errors, and witness-credibility challenges are cognizable in a coram nobis proceeding.
- Whether Mitchell demonstrated a cognizable Brady violation based on alleged suppression of evidence concerning Williamson's wallet and Dan Langston's uncertainty about the date of the encounter.
- Whether Mitchell exercised the diligence required to obtain coram nobis relief.
- Whether Mitchell was entitled to appointment of counsel, leave to file a supplemental petition, or leave to proceed in forma pauperis.
Holdings
- A petitioner must obtain permission from the Arkansas Supreme Court before a trial court may entertain a coram nobis petition after the judgment has been affirmed on appeal.
- A writ of error coram nobis is an extraordinarily rare remedy available only upon a showing of a fundamental error of fact extrinsic to the record that, through no negligence or fault of the defendant, was not presented before judgment and would have prevented rendition of the judgment.
- Coram nobis relief is available for certain fundamental errors falling within four categories: insanity at the time of trial, a coerced guilty plea, material evidence withheld by the prosecutor, and a third-party confession made between conviction and appeal.
- Claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are not cognizable in a coram nobis proceeding and must instead be raised in a timely petition for postconviction relief under Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37.1.
- Claims of actual innocence that amount to challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, alleged trial-court errors, attacks on witness credibility, and other issues that could have been resolved at trial or on direct appeal are direct attacks on the judgment and are not cognizable in coram nobis proceedings.
- Suppression of material exculpatory evidence by the State, including evidence known only to police investigators, may provide a basis for coram nobis relief; however, Mitchell failed to establish that the alleged evidence was suppressed and unknown to the defense at trial.
- Coram nobis does not lie to correct an issue of fact already adjudicated, to address alleged false testimony, or to obtain relief based solely on recanted testimony.
- A coram nobis petitioner must show that the fact was unknown at trial, could not have been presented through due diligence, and was pursued without delay after discovery; failure to demonstrate due diligence may independently support denial of the petition.
Key quotations
“A writ of error coram nobis is an extraordinarily rare remedy.” (at 2)
“The function of the writ is to secure relief from a judgment rendered while there existed some fact that would have prevented its rendition if it had been known to the trial court and which, through no negligence or fault of the defendant, was not brought forward before rendition of the judgment.” (at 2)
“The wrongful withholding of material exculpatory evidence from the defense is a violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and a ground for granting the writ.” (at 3)
“The writ of error coram nobis does not lie to correct an issue of fact that has been adjudicated, even though it may have been wrongly determined, and it does not lie to address alleged false testimony at trial.” (at 10)
Factual background
Mitchell was convicted of first-degree murder for the beating death of Willard Williamson. Mitchell admitted fighting Williamson, leaving him bleeding and unconscious, taking Williamson's truck, and later making statements to Illinois authorities that he had beaten a man in Arkansas. Mitchell argued in the coram nobis petition that police suppressed evidence implicating another person, that a trial witness was uncertain about the date of an encounter, that he was actually innocent, and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. The court concluded that the alleged evidence either was known or discoverable at trial, had been litigated or could have been raised on direct appeal, or was unsupported by specific proof of suppression.
Procedural history
Mitchell was convicted by a jury in 1992 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1993. In 2017, Mitchell filed a pro se petition seeking to reinvest the Greene County Circuit Court with jurisdiction to consider a coram nobis petition, along with motions for appointment of counsel, leave to file a supplemental petition, and leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The Supreme Court denied the petition and deemed the motions moot.