PANEL SAYS jail term wrongful.

Woman’s probation sentence omitted from 2012 order

A Jacksonville woman was wrongfully sent back to jail for violating the terms of a probation sentence that didn’t technically exist, the Arkansas Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

While hearing an appeal of the yearlong jail sentence for Tara Watts for violating her probation, the Court of Appeals found that Pulaski County Circuit Court officials never filed an order sentencing her to probation.

The technicality, according to public defender Clint Miller, is rare.

“Everyone believed she was on probation, but what legally puts you on probation is a [court] order,” Miller said. “It fell through the cracks. No one knows what happened.”

Watts and co-defendant Anthony Watts entered guilty pleas to theft by receiving in September 2012, and Circuit Judge Barry Sims ordered her to a year of probation.

But in the Oct. 2, 2012, sentencing order — a formal, written record of the judgment — only Anthony Watts’ name was included.

Tara Watts returned to circuit court in July 2013 and pleaded guilty to violating the terms of her probation. Sims sentenced her to another year of probation and warned that another foul-up would land her in jail for a year.

She fouled up again, according to court records, and returned to Sims’ court and was sentenced to a year in jail in September 2014.

She appealed her sentence, says it was illegal, but Wednesday’s opinion found no need to address the merits of her claims once the court realized there was no formal document to serve as the basis for her probation violation.

“It is well settled that a judgment is effective only upon entry of the record,” Appeals Judge Phillip Whiteaker wrote. “Counsel avers in a pleading to this court that, after a diligent search by the circuit court clerk’s office, it appears that no such order was ever entered by the Pulaski County Circuit Court. Because an effective judgment of conviction was never entered, the circuit court erred in granting the State’s petitions for revocation.”

Tara Watts was released from the Pulaski County jail months ago, her attorney said, adding that Wednesday’s ruling should clear his client out of the state’s criminal justice system.

Because the appeals process can take longer than the sentence, Miller said, Watts didn’t have any civil remedy to sue over her monthslong stay in the county jail.

“Nine hundred ninety-nine out of 1,000, the paperwork is in order,” Miller said. “It’s kind of a rare case where a really routine thing that should have happened didn’t.”