State of Arkansas, Appellant v. Mario D. Thompson, Appellee

Summary

The court reversed and dismissed the postconviction-relief order because the circuit court clearly erred in finding that trial counsel’s alleged deficiencies prejudiced Thompson. The court concluded that introducing the guardianship evidence could have opened the door to damaging psychological evidence, that Thompson’s below-maximum sentences did not establish prejudice from sentencing counsel’s omissions, and that the jury-instruction and verdict-form errors did not affect the sentence imposed. Justice Josephine Linker Hart, dissenting, would have deferred to the circuit court’s prejudice findings and reconsidered the below-maximum-sentence prejudice rule.