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SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS
No. CV-12-715
Opinion Delivered September 5, 2013
FRANK WATTS II PRO SE APPEAL FROM THE
APPELLANT LINCOLN COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
[40LCV- 12-25, HON. JODI RAINES
v. DENNIS, JUDGE]
STATE OF ARKANSAS
APPELLEE AFFIRMED.
PER CURIAM
In 2012, appellant Frank Watts II, who was incarcerated in Lincoln County, filed a pro
se petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Lincoln County Circuit Court.1 The circuit court
found no merit to the petition and dismissed it. Appellant brings this appeal. We find no error
and affirm the order. A circuit court’s denial of habeas relief will not be reversed unless the
court’s findings are clearly erroneous. Darrough v. State, 2013 Ark. 28 (per curiam); McArty v.
Hobbs, 2012 Ark. 257 (per curiam).
To understand the issues raised in the petition for writ of habeas corpus, it is necessary
to review portions of the history of appellant’s legal proceedings. In 1997, appellant was found
guilty by a jury of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, two counts of
possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a controlled substance. He was adjudged
a habitual offender, and an aggregate sentence of sixty years’ imprisonment was imposed. The
Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed. Watts v. State, 68 Ark. App. 47, 8 S.W.3d 563 (2000).
In 1998, appellant was convicted of multiple additional felony offenses and sentenced
1
As of the date of this opinion, appellant remains incarcerated in Lincoln County.
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as a habitual offender to an aggregate term of life imprisonment. No appeal was taken.2
In 2007, appellant filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Chicot County Circuit
Court, seeking relief from the judgments of conviction. The circuit court granted a motion for
default judgment, but later granted a motion to set aside the default judgment and dismissed the
petition. Appellant filed a motion to vacate the orders setting aside the default judgment and
dismissing the petition, and the court dismissed the motion in an order entered in 2008.
Appellant did not perfect an appeal from the order, and later he sought by motion to
proceed with the appeal. We denied the motion because appellant was no longer within the
jurisdiction of the Chicot County Circuit Court. Once appellant was out of its jurisdiction, the
court in Chicot County did not have authority to obtain appellant’s release from custody in
another county. See Watts v. State, 2009 Ark. 370 (unpublished per curiam).
In the petition for writ of habeas corpus filed in Lincoln County, appellant focused on
alleged flaws in the 2007 habeas proceeding in Chicot County and its effect on the 1997 and
1998 judgments of conviction. Appellant’s grounds on appeal for reversal of the order are that
the 1997 and 1998 judgment-and-commitment orders entered in the trial court and the 2007
Chicot County order setting aside the default judgment were void for lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction. He argues that jeopardy attached when he was convicted in the 1997 prosecutions
and that the 1998 judgment amounted to double jeopardy because the same parties were
involved in the offenses in both cases. While appellant couched his allegation as a double-
jeopardy issue, he offered no facts to demonstrate that the 1997 and 1998 judgments were
2
Appellant later filed a motion for belated appeal, which was denied. Watts v. State,
CR-00-201 (Ark. Sept. 28, 2000) (unpublished per curiam).
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indeed void. Moreover, the double-jeopardy claim was not raised in the petition for writ of
habeas corpus; thus, it was not considered by the circuit court. This court will not consider an
issue that is raised for the first time on appeal when there is no showing of a jurisdictional defect.
Kelly v. Norris, 2013 Ark. 90 (per curiam); see also Justus v. Hobbs, 2013 Ark. 149 (per curiam).
With respect to appellant’s assertion that there was error in the 2007 habeas proceeding
in the Chicot County Circuit Court, appellant did not state a ground for the Lincoln County
Circuit Court to grant a writ of habeas corpus in 2012. As stated, appellant filed the habeas
petition in the Chicot County Circuit Court, but he was not within that court’s jurisdiction when
he sought to proceed with a belated appeal of the order. For that reason, the Chicot County
court could not release him on a writ of habeas corpus. The Chicot County proceeding was not
germane to the decision of the Lincoln County Circuit Court to deny the habeas petition filed
in that court in 2012.
A writ of habeas corpus is proper only when a judgment of conviction is invalid on its
face or when a circuit court lacked jurisdiction over the cause. Roberson v. State, 2013 Ark. 75 (per
curiam); Murry v. Hobbs, 2013 Ark. 64 (per curiam); Davis v. Reed, 316 Ark. 575, 873 S.W.2d 524
(1994). The Lincoln County Circuit Court correctly concluded that appellant had not stated a
ground on which the writ could issue, in that appellant failed to establish that either of the
judgment-and-commitment orders entered in 1997 and 1998 was invalid on its face or that the
trial court lacked jurisdiction to enter the judgment.
The burden is on the petitioner in a habeas-corpus petition to establish that the trial court
lacked jurisdiction or that the commitment was invalid on its face; otherwise, there is no basis
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for a finding that a writ of habeas corpus should issue. Young v. Norris, 365 Ark. 219, 226 S.W.3d
797 (2006) (per curiam). The petitioner must plead either the facial invalidity or the lack of
jurisdiction and make a “showing by affidavit or other evidence [of] probable cause to believe”
he is illegally detained. Id. at 221, 226 S.W.3d at 798–99.
Because appellant failed to state a claim sufficient to warrant issuance of a writ of habeas
corpus, he did not meet his burden of demonstrating that his petition had merit. Therefore, the
circuit court did not err in declining to issue the writ, and the order is affirmed.
Affirmed.
Frank Watts II, pro se appellant.
Dustin McDaniel, Att’y Gen., by: Lauren Elizabeth Heil, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.
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Watts v. State.(2)
Combined Opinion