Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-103

Sentencing — Role of jury and court

Applied in 40 court decisions — leading case Echols v. State (1996)

Most recently applied in Matthew Ryan Elliott v. State of Arkansas (May 2021)

Acts 1975, No. 280, § 802; A.S.A. 1947, § 41-802; Acts 1993, No. 535, § 1; 1993, No. 551, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

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) If a defendant is charged with a felony and is found guilty of an offense by a jury, the jury shall fix punishment in a separate proceeding as authorized by this chapter.

(2) Except as provided by §§ 5-4-601 — 5-4-605, 5-4-607, and 5-4-608, the court shall fix punishment as authorized by this chapter in any case in which: The defendant pleads guilty to an offense;

(3) The defendant's guilt is tried by the court;

(4) The jury fails to agree on punishment;

(5) The prosecution and the defense agree that the court may fix punishment; or

(6) A jury sentence is found by the trial court or an appellate court to be in excess of the punishment authorized by law.

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.