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Easter v. State4/27/2005
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
Kurtis Easter was convicted in a jury trial of filing a false report with a law enforcement agency. The jury also found that as a result of the filing of the false report, law enforcement expended over $500 to investigate the report, including the cost of labor; therefore, the offense was a Class D felony. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-54-122(c)(1)(B) (Repl. 1997). Because he had previously been convicted of more than four felonies, Easter's sentence was then enhanced under the habitual-offender statute, with the jury sentencing him to a term of ten years, to run consecutively to the sentences he was already serving. On appeal, Easter argues that the trial court erred in not granting his motion for directed verdict and that his sentence was illegal or void. We affirm.
In this case, appellant was an inmate of the Arkansas Department of Correction housed at the North Central Unit at Calico Rock. At trial, Investigator Tommy Cleveland of the Arkansas State Police testified that he first got involved in appellant's case in November 2002 when Izard County Sheriff Joe Martz called and told Cleveland that appellant had mailed Martz numerous affidavits stating that appellant had been assaulted by fifteen inmates at the North Central Unit and that he wanted those inmates charged. In a letter to Investigator Cleveland dated November 2, 2002, appellant requested that Cleveland come see him and investigate the fifteen individuals. Appellant stated in that letter that he had filed affidavits against those fifteen individuals. Cleveland said that Sheriff Martz asked him to look at the affidavits, and he drove to Calico Rock from Mountain View to get them.
On May 20, 2003, Cleveland went to the North Central Unit and visited with then Warden Sarah McQuilliams and Captain Elmer Bolia regarding the arrest affidavits from appellant. McQuilliams and Bolia told Cleveland that they had looked into the allegations, that they had performed an internal investigation, and that there was nothing to the allegations. Then, on May 30, 2003, Cleveland met with appellant at the North Central Unit. After Cleveland read appellant his rights and appellant completed the waiver-of-rights form at 9:06 a.m., appellant gave Cleveland a statement. The statement, which was begun at 9:10 a.m. and was signed by appellant at 10:30 a.m., indicated that six of the inmates against whom appellant had filed affidavits had not in fact hit or assaulted appellant, that appellant could not remember what part two of the other named inmates had played in the incidents, and that the remaining inmates had hit him. Cleveland did not speak to any of the inmates against whom appellant had filed affidavits. Cleveland further testified that " here were also telephone calls made to individuals during this time. A lot of phone calls." Cleveland stated that it took him a day or two to "do all of the reports and do the arrest affidavits" and that he then had to take that information to Batesville for a judge to sign and to file the arrest warrants against appellant for filing the false report. Cleveland testified that "this investigation, including my salary and mileage, I figured that up and it would have been over a thousand dollars."
Sarah McQuilliams testified that appellant had made some allegations in November 2002 and that she had made certain that those allegations were investigated. She said that she had been the official record keeper at that unit, and that she had never received any reports from inmates or employees that appellant had been beaten, threatened, or spit on, even though it was ADC policy that a form was required to be filled out by an officer any time there was an incident in a prison. McQ
Page 1 2 3 Arkansas DUI Attorneys
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