PRO SE
APPEAL FROM THE BOONE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 05CR-10-249]
HONORABLE JOHN R. PUTMAN, JUDGE
Morris
Dean Davis, pro se appellant.
Leslie
Rutledge, Att'y Gen., by: Karen Virginia Wallace,
Ass't Att'y Gen., for appellee.
JOHN
DAN KEMP, CHIEF JUSTICE
Following
his conviction on charges of manslaughter, manufacture of a
controlled substance (marijuana), abuse of a corpse, and
tampering with physical evidence, which resulted from a
negotiated plea of nolo contendere, appellant Morris Dean
Davis filed a petition in the trial court seeking a writ of
error coram nobis. Davis alleged in his petition that he was
coerced into entering the plea because he was given
misleading information about the manslaughter charge and that
he was insane and not competent to enter the plea. After a
hearing on the petition, the trial court denied coram nobis
relief, finding that Davis's claims as developed in the
hearing were largely ineffective-assistance-of-counsel
claims, which as such were untimely; that Davis had presented
no credible evidence of coercion or insanity at the time he
entered his plea; and that he failed to demonstrate diligence
in pursuing at least one of his claims. The trial court's
findings are well supported by the record, and it did not
abuse its discretion by declining to issue the writ.
Accordingly, we affirm.
Davis
was initially charged with first-degree murder rather than
manslaughter, and the list of original charges included an
additional allegation of a sentencing enhancement for the use
of a firearm that was not pursued under the negotiated plea.
As set out in the charging information, the State alleged
that Davis had fatally shot his girlfriend, Lisa Davis, in
the face with a rifle. The court ordered a mental-health
evaluation of Davis, and the report, which was filed about
two years before Davis entered his plea, found that Davis was
capable of understanding the proceedings and assisting
counsel, that he did not present with evidence of a mental
disease or defect, and that he could both appreciate the
criminality of his actions and conform his behavior to the
requirements of the law.
The
trial court conducted two plea hearings, declining to accept
Davis's no-contest plea to the charges at the first
hearing. The court accepted the plea during the second
hearing. During both hearings, Davis's account of what
had happened was consistent with his version of events as
described in the mental-health report. Davis maintained that
Lisa had committed suicide, shooting herself with the rifle,
but that he had not called the police or disclosed her death
at the time and had only told the police about the
suicide-initially denying her death and saying that Lisa had
left him-when a friend he had confided in six weeks after her
death went to the police. He admitted that he had left the
rifle where Lisa had found it, knowing that she had attempted
suicide in the past; that he had cleaned up the scene and
buried Lisa a few days after her death, naked and face down
in a shallow grave in the barn; and that he had covered the
grave with concrete and a stack of lumber. The State
contended during the plea hearing that it could prove, at a
minimum, that Davis had caused Lisa to commit suicide or
recklessly caused her death. Davis affirmed during the final
plea hearing that no one had threatened or coerced him into
changing his plea.
After
Davis filed his coram nobis petition, the trial court held a
hearing and heard testimony from Davis, a witness who knew
the couple and had seen Lisa drunk on a number of occasions,
and Davis's trial attorney. Davis indicated in his
testimony that his issues with the plea were limited to the
manslaughter charge, that he should have been provided a
"post-trial hearing" concerning whether he was
coerced or rational enough to enter the plea, that he was
convicted under a different subsection of the manslaughter
statute than what he believed he had agreed to, that his
attorney had used a cell phone to show Davis a copy of the
statute that contained a subsection that did not exist in the
applicable manslaughter statute, and that he had not been
diagnosed with any behavioral disorder. Trial counsel
testified that he had hired a forensics expert to assist in
the case; that, after consultation with that expert, he
concluded that Davis's actions in destroying some
evidence, cleaning up the crime scene, burying the body, and
placing an ad for a woman companion after Lisa's
disappearance, would have made it extremely difficult to
defend a murder charge; that the earlier parole eligibility
for manslaughter made the plea offer more attractive than a
conviction on a murder charge, considering Davis's age;
that Davis had been adamant that he would not enter a plea or
admit guilt to murder because of some pending civil matters
concerning his property; that Davis did not show signs of
emotional distress at the time of the plea hearings that
would have merited another evaluation of his mental health;
and that his recollection of showing Davis the manslaughter
statute on his phone included providing an explanation of the
section listed on the judgment and that the statute was the
correct one and did not include the section that Davis
insisted had been shown to him.
Davis
correctly pursued the writ in the trial court. When the
judgment or conviction was entered on a plea of guilty or
nolo contendere, the petition for writ of error coram nobis
is filed directly with the circuit court. Thacker v.
State, 2016 Ark. 350, 500 S.W.3d 736. 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.
Smith v. State, 2017 Ark. 236, 523 S.W.3d 354. An
abuse of discretion occurs when the court acts arbitrarily or
groundlessly. Id. The trial court's findings of
fact, on which it bases its decision to grant or deny the
petition for writ of error coram nobis, will not be reversed
on appeal unless they are clearly erroneous or clearly
against the preponderance of the evidence. Id. There
is no abuse of discretion in the denial of error coram nobis
relief when the claims in the petition are groundless.
Id.
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. Faulkens v. State, 2017 Ark. 291. The
petitioner has the burden of demonstrating a fundamental
error of fact extrinsic to the record. McCullough v.
State, 2017 Ark. 292. 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) material evidence withheld by the
prosecutor, or (4) a third-party confession to the crime
during the time between conviction and appeal. Id.
Davis
raises some issues in his brief that were not before the
trial court. When reviewing the trial court's ruling on a
coram nobis petition on appeal, the appellant is limited to
the scope and nature of the arguments that he or she made
below that were considered by the trial court in rendering
its ruling, and we therefore limit our consideration on
appeal to those claims that were contained in the petition
filed in the trial court and any factual support for those
claims contained in the petition. Smith, 2017 Ark.
236, 523 S.W.3d 354. Here, we limit our review to Davis's
claims that he was coerced into entering the plea because he
was given misleading information about the manslaughter
charge and that he was not competent to enter the
plea.[1]
To
prevail on a claim that a writ of error coram nobis is
warranted because a plea was coerced, the petitioner bears
the burden of establishing that the plea was the result of
fear, duress, or threats of mob violence as previously
recognized by this court as grounds for a finding of
coercion. Id. Davis based his claim of coercion on
the allegation that his attorney provided him incorrect
information about the manslaughter statute. Claims of
ineffective assistance of counsel, as this claim is, do not
support issuance of the writ. Green v. State, 2016
Ark. 386, 502 S.W.3d 524. A claim that a petitioner's
decision to plead guilty was occasioned by an erroneous
interpretation of law by his trial counsel is not one
cognizable in proceedings for the writ. Pelletier v.
State, 2015 Ark. 432, 474 S.W.3d 500. As the trial court
concluded, none of the evidence at the hearing supported
grounds for a finding of coercion to support issuance of the
writ. It is therefore unnecessary to examine whether, as the
trial court found, Davis failed to pursue this claim with
diligence.[2]
The
trial court also correctly determined that it could not elect
to treat the petition as one under Arkansas Rule of Criminal
Procedure 37.1 (2017). To do so, the petition must comply
with the requirements and restrictions on filing a Rule 37
petition.[3] See Green, 2016 Ark. 386, 502
S.W.3d 524. Because the petition did not meet those
requirements, the trial court correctly determined that the
petition was not one it could consider under Rule 37.
As for
Davis's claim that he was insane, the matter of
competency was one that had been submitted to the trial court
and considered by it. Davis therefore failed to demonstrate
that there existed some fact that would have prevented
rendition of the judgment had it been known to the trial
court. Westerman v. State, 2015 Ark. 69, 456 S.W.3d
374. Davis alleged that the length of his incarceration after
the evaluation may have been a factor to consider, but he did
not provide evidence to document a change in his mental
status unknown to the court. He did not identify any behavior
indicating a change in his mental status ...