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 (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

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

QUESTION PRESENTED Acitizen of another state received a three-hundredyear 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 (80) counts of violating an Arkansas statute prohibiting the transfer of “any photograph .. . [or] computer program or file” that depicts child pornography. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-27602(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. The questions presented are: 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.

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