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Ark. Code Ann. § 16-63-402

Continuance for absence of evidence or witness

Applied in 30 court decisions — leading case Echols v. State (1996)

Most recently applied in Robert J. Williams, Jr. v. State of Arkansas (February 2024)

Civil Code, § 340; Acts 1879, No. 26, § 1, p. 26; 1887, No. 18, § 1, p. 19; C. & M

How often courts cite this section

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citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) A motion to postpone a trial on account of the absence of evidence shall, if required by the opposite party, be made only upon affidavit showing the materiality of the evidence expected to be obtained and that due diligence has been used to obtain it. If the motion is for an absent witness, the affidavit must show what facts the affiant believes the witness will prove and not merely show the effect of the facts in evidence, that the affiant believes them to be true, and that the witness is not absent by the consent, connivance, or procurement of the party asking the postponement.

(2) If thereupon the adverse party will admit that on trial the absent witness, if present, would testify to the statement contained in the application for a continuance, then the trial shall not be postponed for that cause. However, the opposite party may controvert the statement so set forth in the motion for continuance by evidence.

Current official text: Arkansas General Assembly. Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Arkansas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.