Iris Brown v. State of Arkansas

── Iris Brown v. State of Arkansas ── Court: Court of Appeals of Arkansas Date: May 13, 2026 Category: General Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 294 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION II No. CR-25-92 IRIS BROWN Opinion Delivered May 13, 2026 APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE LONOKE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT V. [NO. 43CR-23-119] STATE OF ARKANSAS HONORABLE BARBARA ELMORE, APPELLEE JUDGE AFFIRMED BART F. VIRDEN, Judge Appellant Iris Brown appeals from the denial of her pro se petitions to correct an illegal sentence filed pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated section 16-90-111 (Repl. 2016). On appeal, Brown argues that she was denied effective assistance of counsel because she was forced to sign a plea agreement and because her counsel did not prevent her probation revocation on a sentence that had already expired. We affirm the circuit court’s denial of Brown’s petitions. I. Background Facts and Procedural History On February 22, 2023, Brown was charged in the Lonoke County Circuit Court with committing the offense of second-degree domestic battering, a Class C felony, on October 26, 2022, and committing the offense of failure to appear, a Class C felony, on January 23, 2023. On February 27, 2023, she pleaded guilty to both offenses. Brown was sentenced to thirty-six months’ probation. On April 10, 2023, the State filed a petition to revoke Brown’s probation for failure to report on four occasions and failure to make payments in accordance with the conditions of her probation. On April 9, Brown pleaded guilty to violating the terms of her probation. She was sentenced to sixty months’ probation. As part of her plea, Brown signed an acknowledgment of her understanding that if she violated her listed probation conditions during her period of probation, the circuit court could impose a sentence of up to twenty years’ imprisonment. On June 14, 2024, the State filed a second petition to revoke Brown’s probation alleging that she failed to report on two dates, that she failed to maintain a valid residence, and that her whereabouts were unknown at the time the petition was filed. On August 6, 2024, Brown once again pleaded guilty to violating the terms of her probation. She was sentenced to concurrent terms of thirty-six months’ imprisonment on each of the original offenses of second-degree domestic battering and failure to appear. On October 30, 2024, Brown filed a petition to correct illegal sentence pursuant to section 16-90-111, claiming that her revocation was illegal because it was based on a sentence that had already been served and a parole date that had already expired. Brown claimed that her original charges were from 2005 and 2008 and that she had completed her prison sentences and time on parole related to those convictions when her parole was revoked in 2 August 2024.1 The circuit court denied Brown’s petition on October 31, 2024, finding that she had pleaded guilty to two Class C felonies in February 2023, both of which carried possible sentences of three-to-ten years’ imprisonment. The circuit court further found that when Brown pleaded guilty to violating her probation in August 2024, she could have received ten years’ imprisonment on each of her original offenses and that her three-year sentence on the revocation was a legal sentence. Brown filed a timely notice of appeal on November 14, 2024. The record on appeal also contains a second illegal-sentence petition that Brown filed on November 20, 2024. Brown made the same argument there as in her previous petition and added an