Olajuwon Smith, Appellant v. State of Arkansas, Appellee

Summary

The court affirmed the denial of Smith’s second postconviction petition because his first timely, verified petition was dismissed without leave to file another petition, and the governing rule requires all available grounds to be raised in the original petition. The court held that the petition’s formatting defect was not jurisdictional and that procedural limits on the form, length, and number of postconviction petitions did not violate due process or require allowing a second petition. Justice Josephine Linker Hart, dissenting, would have treated the second filing as a corrected version of the first and permitted Smith to obtain review on the merits.