The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday said Circuit judge Jodi Raines Dennis was correct when she denied a request from a prison inmate who alleged the trial court that sentenced him lacked jurisdiction in the case.
Jamie Darnell Lee, 45, is serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted in Miller County in 1997 of capital murder and four counts of first-degree battery.
He is serving his sentence at the Varner Supermax unit in Lincoln County.
In his petition, Lee contended that his sentence should be voided because his name was not in the body of the criminal information report and he was not identified as a defendant.
Judge Dennis denied Lee’s petition and he appealed her ruling to the Supreme Court.
Writing for the Supreme Court, Judge Rhonda Wood said that the court has ruled in the past that a defective information that does not affect he legality of the sentence is not a jud8icial error and is treated as a trial error.
Lee also contended that his due process rights were violated but the judge wrote that the proper time to have raised that issue was prior to or at trial.
