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Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-502

Habitual offenders — Sentencing procedure

Applied in 18 court decisions — leading case Lockhart v. Nelson (1988)

Most recently applied in 2014 Ark. App. 560 - Johns v. State (October 2014)

Acts 1975, No. 280, § 1005; 1977, No. 474, § 7; 1981, No. 252, § 3; A.S.A. 1947, § 41-1005.

How often courts cite this section

1988199020002010201430
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.

The following procedure governs a trial at which a sentence to an extended term of imprisonment is sought pursuant to § 5-4-501:

(1) The jury shall first hear all evidence relevant to the felony with which the defendant is currently charged and shall retire to reach a verdict of guilt or innocence on this charge;

(2) If the defendant is found guilty of the felony, out of the hearing of the jury the trial court shall hear evidence of the defendant's prior felony convictions or prior findings of the defendant's guilt of felonies and shall determine the number of prior felony convictions, if any.

(3) The defendant shall have the right to hear and controvert evidence described in subdivision (2)(A) of this section and to offer evidence in his or her support;

(4) The trial court shall then instruct the jury as to the number of prior felony convictions and the statutory sentencing range.

(5) The jury may be advised as to the nature of a prior felony conviction and the date and place of a prior felony conviction; and

(6) The jury shall retire again and then determine a sentence within the statutory range.

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.