{
  "id": 1158947,
  "name": "John Franklin WILLIAMS v. STATE of Arkansas",
  "name_abbreviation": "Williams v. State",
  "decision_date": "2002-12-05",
  "docket_number": "CR 02-21",
  "first_page": "229",
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      "category": "laws:leg_statute",
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          "page": "(a)(l)",
          "parenthetical": "Repl. 1999 and Supp. 2001"
        }
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    {
      "cite": "Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 12-12-901",
      "category": "laws:leg_statute",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T20:20:47.503009+00:00",
  "provenance": {
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    "source": "Harvard",
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "John Franklin WILLIAMS v. STATE of Arkansas"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Tom Glaze, Justice.\nIn this appeal, we are asked to determine whether or not the trial court retroactively applied any part of Arkansas\u2019 Sex Offender Registration Act, Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 12-12-901 et seq. (Repl. 1999 and Supp. 2001), in revoking the suspended sentence of appellant John Williams. We hold that it did not, and affirm.\nWe begin with a chronology of the events leading up to this appeal. On December 20, 1991, Williams was convicted of third-degree sexual assault in Wisconsin; on February 3, 1992, he was sentenced, among other things, to two years\u2019 probation. During his period of probation, Williams moved to Fort Smith in November of 1992, after spending a short period of time in Arizona. In 1993, Wisconsin enacted its Sex Offender Registry Program, requiring registration of any person who was \u201con probation . . . on or after December 25, 1993, for a sex offense.\u201d Wisc. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 301.45(lg)(b). Because he was still on probation as of December 25, 1993, Williams was required to, and did, register as a sex offender in Wisconsin.\nArkansas subsequendy passed its own Sex Offender Registration statute: Act 989 of 1997, which is codified at Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 12-12-901 et seq., and which has since been amended in part in 1999 and 2001. Arkansas\u2019 registration requirements applied to anyone who was \u201cserving a sentence of incarceration, probation, parole, or other form of community supervision as a result of an adjudication of guilt for ... a sex offense, on the effective date of this act.\u201d Act 989 of 1997, \u00a7 4(2) (codified at Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 -12-12-905(a)(2)). The statute became effective on August 1, 1997.\nOn October 8, 1997, Williams pled guilty to charges of breaking or entering and felony theft of property in Sebastian County Circuit Court. He was sentenced to prison for six years, with four and a half years suspended, on the breaking or entering, and to ten years, with eight and a half years suspended, for the theft of property. In May of 1998, Williams was paroled. One of the terms of his parole was that he was not to violate any state law.\nOn April 11, 2000, Jessie King, the Coordinator of the Arkansas Sex Offender Registry, received information from the Arizona Department of Public Safety that Williams was a sex offender, that he was moving to Arkansas, and that he was required to register with the Sex Offender Registry. On November 15, 2000, a warrant for Williams\u2019s arrest was issued, alleging that, on April 14, 2000, the Fort Smith Police Department received information from the Arkansas Crime Information Center (\u201cACIC\u201d) that Williams, who was living in Fort Smith, was required to register as a sex offender and had failed to respond to requests for address verification from ACIC.\nAs a result, on September 19, 2001, the State filed a petition to revoke Williams\u2019s suspended sentences, alleging that he committed the offense of failing to comply with the reporting requirements of Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 12-12-904(a)(l) (Repl. 1999 and Supp. 2001), which makes it a Class D felony to fail to register or to fail to report a change of address as required under the Sex Offender Registration Act. After a hearing, the trial court revoked Williams\u2019s suspended sentence on November 2, 2001. From that order, Williams brings this appeal, wherein he argues, among other things, that the trial court retroactively applied portions of the registration statutes to revoke his suspended sentences.\nWilliams argues that the trial court erred in revoking his suspended sentence, because the court applied a version of \u00a7 12-12-905 to him that was not in effect at the time he received his suspended sentence in October of 1997. He maintains that the revocation of his suspended sentence on the basis of this amended statute was an unconstitutional ex post facto application of the law. We disagree. Williams\u2019s ex post facto argument fails because his sentence was imposed in October of 1997, and, as noted above, the effective date of Act 989 was August 1, 1997. Under \u00a7 5(a)(4) of Act 989, as an offender who moved to Arkansas from another jurisdiction, Williams had thirty days after August 1, 1997, in which to register. He failed to do so.\nWilliams also argues that, because there was nothing on the face of his Wisconsin conviction that showed he was required to register as a sex offender, his time of \u201ccommunity supervision\u201d was over, and therefore, he was not required to register under Arkansas law. However, his argument ignores the fact that Wisconsin\u2019s Sex Offender Registration Statute, enacted in 1993, applied to anyone who was \u201con probation ... on or after December 25, 1993, for a sex offense.\u201d Williams was sentenced in February of 1992 to two years\u2019 probation in Wisconsin, and he was therefore on probation on December 25, 1993, and required to register in Wisconsin. This adjudication of guilt of a sex offense of the laws of Wisconsin brought Williams within the ambit of Arkansas\u2019s registration laws, since he was \u201ca person . . . serving a sentence of. . . other form of community supervision as a result of an adjudication of guilt for ... a sex offense.\u201d See Act 989 of 1997, \u00a7 4(2).\nFinally, we consider Williams\u2019s argument on appeal that there was insufficient evidence to warrant the revocation of his suspended sentence. To revoke probation or a suspended sentence, the burden is on the State to prove the violation of a condition of probation or the suspended sentence by a preponderance of the evidence. See Ark. Code Ann. \u00a7 5-4-309(d) (Supp. 2001); Bradley v. State, 347 Ark. 518, 65 S.W.3d 874 (2002); Lemons v. State, 310 Ark. 381, 836 S.W.2d 861 (1992). On appellate review, the trial court\u2019s findings will be upheld unless they are clearly against the preponderance of the evidence. Bradley, supra; Hoffman v. State, 289 Ark. 184, 711 S.W.2d 151 (1986). Because the burdens are different, evidence that is insufficient for a criminal conviction may be sufficient for a probation or suspended sentence revocation. Thus, the burden on the State is not as great in a revocation hearing. Lemons, supra. Since determination of a preponderance of the evidence turns on questions of credibility and weight to be given to the testimony, we defer to the trial judge\u2019s superior position. Id.\nThe evidence introduced at the revocation hearing showed that Williams had lived in Arkansas since 1992. In addition, the Coordinator of the Sex Offender Registry in Arkansas testified that she\u2019 had not received any information in the last year that Williams had registered as a sex offender in Arkansas. Although Williams testified that he did not believe that he had to register in Arkansas, based on conversations he had had with Fort Smith Police Department detectives, his credibility was impugned when the State introduced a letter he wrote, apparently to the Wisconsin Sex Offender Registry, stating that he was \u201ccurrently registered in Fort Smith. ... I was told to sign in in every state if I choose to relocate. Do I have to inform Wisconsin SORP [Sex Offender Registration Program] also[?]\u201d Clearly, Williams was aware of both Arkansas\u2019 and Wisconsin\u2019s registration requirements, despite his testimony that he believed he did not have to register in this state. The trial court apparently did not believe this contention, and this court defers to the trial court on questions of credibility.\nIn sum, because the evidence showed that Williams was convicted of a sex offense and registered as a sex offender in Wisconsin, had lived in Arkansas since 1992, and failed to register as a sex offender in this State, in accordance with the requirements in \u00a7 12-12-905, the State met its burden of proving that Williams violated a condition of his suspended sentence. The trial court\u2019s revocation of Williams\u2019s suspended sentence is therefore affirmed.\nObviously, the Arizona information was somewhat out-of-date, as Williams had been living in Fort Smith since November of 1992.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Tom Glaze, Justice."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "David L. Dunagin, for appellant.",
      "Mark Pryor, Att\u2019y Gen., by: Lauren Elizabeth Heil, Ass\u2019t Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "John Franklin WILLIAMS v. STATE of Arkansas\nCR 02-21\n91 S.W.3d 68\nSupreme Court of Arkansas\nOpinion delivered December 5, 2002\nDavid L. Dunagin, for appellant.\nMark Pryor, Att\u2019y Gen., by: Lauren Elizabeth Heil, Ass\u2019t Att\u2019y Gen., for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0229-01",
  "first_page_order": 255,
  "last_page_order": 260
}