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PRO SE
APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, FIRST DIVISION
[NO. 60CR-06-1822], HONORABLE LEON JOHNSON, JUDGE
Broderick Don Scott, pro se appellant.
Leslie
Rutledge, Atty Gen., by: Brad Newman, Asst Atty Gen., for
appellee.
OPINION
JOSEPHINE
LINKER HART, Justice
In
2006, appellant Broderick Don Scott entered a plea of guilty
to first-degree battery, two counts of committing a
terroristic act, possession of a firearm by certain persons,
aggravated assault, and first-degree terroristic threatening,
for which he was sentenced to an aggregate term of 360
months imprisonment. In 2013, Scott filed in the trial court
a pro se petition for writ of error coram nobis challenging
the judgment, and on November 26, 2013, the petition was
denied. Scott did not file a notice of appeal until February
19, 2014, eighty-five days after the order had been entered.
This court denied Scotts motion for belated appeal for
failure to establish good cause for the untimely filing of
the notice of appeal. Scott v. State, 2014 Ark. 199,
2014 WL 1776009 (per curiam).
On
April 20, 2016, Scott again sought coram nobis relief in the
trial court. Scott filed an amended pro se petition on May 5,
2016. The trial court, addressing the May 5, 2016 amended
coram nobis petition, denied relief and noted that it had
found Scotts first coram nobis petition untimely in 2013 and
that Scotts current petition, filed ten years after
imposition of sentence, "would be no timelier than the
first." This court reversed and remanded, concluding
that the Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct.
1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), claim may have had merit and
that the trial court was in a position to hold an evidentiary
hearing to consider and test the merits of the petition.
See Scott v. State, 2017 Ark. 199, 520
S.W.3d 262.
On
remand and after an evidentiary hearing, the trial court
again denied relief, and Scott now appeals the denial of his
second petition for writ of error coram nobis. On appeal,
Scott contends that (1) the trial court erred by finding that
Scott failed to demonstrate the State suppressed evidence in
violation of Brady ; (2) the trial court erred by
not taking judicial notice of adjudicative facts regarding
the file-mark dates on the evidence introduced by the State;
(3) the trial court erred when it failed to apply the
doctrine of "law of the case" when raised by Scott;
(4) the trial court erred by stating that the victim
"recanted" her statement; [1] the trial court
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erred by permitting the State to piecemeal its defense; and
(6) the trial court erred by failing to find that Scott
suffered prejudice by the suppression of the evidence. Scott
has failed to establish that the trial court abused its
discretion and that the writ should have issued; as such, we
affirm.
I.
Standard of Review
When
the judgment is appealed, an appellant must first seek
permission in this court to proceed in the trial court with a
petition for writ of error coram nobis. Kain v.
State,2019 Ark. 113, 570 S.W.3d 466. However, if the
judgment of conviction was entered on a plea of guilty or
nolo contendere, the petition for writ of error coram nobis
is first filed directly with the trial court. Id.
The standard of review of an order entered by the trial court
on a petition for a writ of error coram nobis is whether the
trial court abused its discretion in granting or denying the
writ. Osburn v. State,2018 Ark. 341, 560 S.W.3d
774. An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court acts
arbitrarily or groundlessly. Id. The trial courts
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 those findings are clearly
erroneous or clearly ...