By Ray King

A Jefferson County man serving a life sentence after being convicted of raping a handicapped 16-year-old girl failed to convince the Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday that evidence presented at his trial had been switched by the State Crime Laboratory and was withheld.

Edmond McClinton also claimed that the court that convicted him lacked jurisdiction.

This was the third time McClinton had appealed his conviction, the first being in 2015 when he contended that there were a number of trial court errors including rulings on motions and sentencing procedures and a lack of a first appearance or other initial hearings.

In his second petition, McClinton argued that documents were withheld that demonstrated that DNA evidence had been switched and that a hospital report showed no sign of sexual intercourse. Those petitions were denied.

Writing for the Supreme Court, Justice Karen Baker said McClinton has not raised any facts sufficient to distinguish this claim from the one he made in the previous petition which had been denied. In his third petition, McClinton contended in a one-sentence allegation that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction, but Baker wrote that a conclusionary claim is not  grounds for what McClinton was seeking.

McClinton is serving his sentence at the Cummins Unit of the Department of Corrections.