ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION II
No. CR-15-577
Opinion Delivered September 14, 2016
MICHAEL HUNTER APPEAL FROM THE COLUMBIA
APPELLANT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
[NO. CR-13-60]
V.
HONORABLE DAVID W. TALLEY,
STATE OF ARKANSAS JR., JUDGE
APPELLEE
REMANDED TO SETTLE AND
SUPPLEMENT THE RECORD;
REBRIEFING ORDERED
BRANDON J. HARRISON, Judge
Michael Hunter appeals his conviction for engaging in a continuing criminal
enterprise following a bench trial in the Columbia County Circuit Court. On appeal he
argues that the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he engaged in a
continuing criminal enterprise and that the circuit court abused its discretion during the
sentencing phase of the trial. We cannot reach the merits of his appeal because the record
doesn’t comply with Arkansas Supreme Court Administrative Order No. 4(a) (2015). We
therefore remand the case to the circuit court to settle and supplement the record; and we
order Hunter to file a substituted brief after a supplemental record has been filed.
The record now before us has several compact discs. One CD contains State’s
Exhibits 5 and 9, which are recorded telephone calls. A separate CD is labeled State’s
Exhibit 6 and State’s Exhibit 8, but that CD is blank, meaning it contains no information.
1
Cite as
In late January 2016, a third CD was filed as a supplement to the record. The third CD
contains a usable reproduction of State’s Exhibit 6. But it doesn’t contain a usable
reproduction of State’s Exhibit 8. On remand, the record needs to be supplemented with
a usable reproduction of State’s Exhibit 8.
Moving past the CD issue, the record also lacks a verbatim transcript of the audio
component of the State’s Exhibits 5, 6, 8 and 9. So the record currently before us doesn’t
comply with Arkansas Supreme Court Administrative Order No. 4(a), which provides that
[u]nless waived on the record by the parties, it shall be the duty of any circuit
court to require that a verbatim record be made of all proceedings, including
any communications between the court and one or more members of the
jury, pertaining to any contested matter before the court or the jury.
Because the record as it now sits contains neither a verbatim transcript of recorded material
played during trial, nor a waiver, we must remand the case to the circuit court so it may
settle the record and direct the court reporter to transcribe all recordings that were played
during Hunter’s trial.
The record must be supplemented within 30 days of this order’s date and, after the
supplemental record has been filed, Hunter must file a substituted brief that complies with
our abstracting and addendum requirements within 15 days after the supplemental record
has been prepared and filed with this court’s clerk. See Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-2(a)(5), (8)(b)(3).
The State should then, if it chooses to respond to Hunter’s substituted brief, file an appellee’s
substituted brief within 15 days of the filing of Hunter’s brief.
Remanded to settle and supplement the record; rebriefing ordered.
GLOVER and VAUGHT, JJ., agree.
Terrence Cain, for appellant.
Leslie Rutledge, Att’y Gen., by: Evelyn D. Gomez, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee.
2
