Marlin Brown, Appellant v. State of Arkansas, Appellee

Summary

The court affirmed Brown’s convictions, holding that his equal-protection challenge to Arkansas’s elimination of the limitations period for DNA-identified defendants failed under rational-basis review. The court reasoned that DNA evidence is materially different from other evidence because it does not degrade over time and that the legislature could rationally eliminate the limitations period when DNA identifies an alleged perpetrator. The court declined to consider Brown’s ex post facto argument because he had not preserved it in the trial court.