No. 18-1396

Dereck Pelletier v. Wendy Kelley, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction, et al.

Lower Court: Arkansas
Docketed: 2019-05-06
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Response Waived
Tags: criminal-law double-jeopardy double-jeopardy-clause due-process fifth-amendment fourteenth-amendment multiplicity retroactivity statutory-construction statutory-interpretation unit-of-prosecution
Key Terms:
DueProcess FifthAmendment HabeasCorpus
Latest Conference: 2019-06-20
Question Presented (from Petition)

A citizen of another state received a three-hundred-year sentence for sending, in one transaction, a single computer file containing thirty (30) images of child pornography to a law enforcement officer in Arkansas. The citizen plead guilty to thirty (30) counts of violating an Arkansas statute prohibiting the transfer of "any photograph . . . [or] computer program or file" that depicts child pornography. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-27-602(a)(1). The Arkansas Supreme Court held, breaking with nine state supreme courts and its own judicial precedent interpreting similarly worded statutes that a conviction and sentence for each item of contraband transferred did not violate the Fifth Amendment.

1. Whether a state supreme court can overcome a defendant's multiplicity challenge under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment by classifying a statute as unambiguous without utilizing the cannons of statutory construction; and

2. Whether an unforeseeable judicial enlargement of a criminal statute's unit of prosecution violates due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments when applied retroactively.

Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether a state supreme court can overcome a defendant's multiplicity challenge under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment by classifying a statute as unambiguous without utilizing the cannons of statutory construction

Docket Entries

2019-06-24
Petition DENIED.
2019-06-04
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/20/2019.
2019-05-30
Waiver of right of respondent Wendy Kelley, et al. to respond filed.
2019-05-01
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due June 5, 2019)

Attorneys

Dereck Pelletier
Robert Eli TellezTellez Law Firm PLLC, Petitioner
Wendy Kelley, et al.
Nicholas Jacob BronniSolicitor General of Arkansas, Respondent