SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS
No. CR-97-1490
CHRISTOPHER EPPS Opinion Delivered December 12, 2019
PETITIONER
V. PRO SE MOTION REQUESTING COPY
OF RECORDS [BOONE COUNTY
STATE OF ARKANSAS CIRCUIT COURT, NO. 05CR-96-282]
RESPONDENT
MOTION DENIED.
KAREN R. BAKER, Associate Justice
Petitioner Christopher Epps filed a pro se motion requesting copies of his case file
pursuant to Rule 19(b) of the Arkansas Rules of Appellate Procedure –Criminal (2018).1
Epps’s motion includes a certificate of service on Gregg Parrish, executive director of the
Arkansas Public Defender Commission, and Charles Duell, prosecuting attorney for the
Fourth Judicial District. Parrish responded to Epps’s motion in his capacity as executive
director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission. Because Epps has not
demonstrated a compelling need for paper copies, the motion is denied.
A review of the motion and response demonstrates that both parties do not contest
the following facts: that the lead counsel in Epps’s criminal trial was Buford Gardner, who
was the chief public defender for Boone County and represented Epps during the guilt
1
In 1997, Epps was convicted by a jury as an accomplice to one count of kidnapping
and one count of capital murder, and he was sentenced to life without parole plus 480
months’ imprisonment. We affirmed. Epps v. State, CR-97-1490 (Ark. Apr. 20, 2000)
(unpublished).
phase of the trial and who is now deceased; that Duell, who is currently serving as a
prosecutor in Madison and Benton Counties, had previously been a public defender who
represented Epps during the penalty phase of the trial but does not possess a copy of Epps’s
case file and is not in a position to obtain such; that Parrish did not represent Epps either
at trial or on appeal but has responded to the request for copies due to his position as
executive director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission; that at Parrish’s request,
the Boone County public defender’s office attempted to locate Epps’s case file and could
not; that Parrish requested copies of the case file from the Boone County Circuit Court,
which provided Parrish with an electronic disk that contained the court’s file; that Parrish
has agreed to forward this electronic disk to Epps.
The only issue in dispute here is Epps’s request that this court order Parrish to
provide paper copies of the material contained on the electronic disk provided to Parrish
by the circuit court. Parrish responds that because he never represented Epps either at trial
or on appeal, he does not possess paper copies of a client file and is not obligated under
the Rules of Professional Conduct to convert the electronically stored material to paper.
Ark. R. Prof’l Conduct 1.16(d) (2018) (the attorney is to provide only what already exists in
his or her possession); Geatches v. State,
.
Arkansas Rule of Appellate Procedure –Crim. 19 provides that “if the moving party
seeks a photocopy (as opposed to a disk or other electronic medium), he or she must
demonstrate some compelling need for the brief, record, or transcript.” Here, Epps states
that he needs paper copies of his case file in order to file a petition for postconviction relief
2
because two of his codefendants have received such relief. Epps has cited no
postconviction remedy that would be available to him and has otherwise made no showing
of a compelling need for paper copies of the electronically stored material.
