Emmitt Riley v. State of Arkansas

Summary

The court affirmed Riley’s convictions and life sentence and granted appointed counsel’s motion to withdraw after independently reviewing the record under the no-merit appeal procedure. It held that Riley’s sufficiency challenge was unpreserved because trial counsel made no directed-verdict motion, and it found no reversible error in the remaining adverse rulings because any error was harmless. A dissent argued that the appeal was not wholly frivolous because the exclusion of evidence concerning the victim’s violent character and the unraised sufficiency issue warranted adversarial briefing.