ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

CHIEF JUDGE JOHN F. STROUD, JR.

DIVISION I

HOSEA LEE KEYS

APPELLANT

V.

STATE OF ARKANSAS

APPELLEE

CACR 00-1444

January 16, 2002

APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI

COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT,

FOURTH DIVISION [CR98-3517,

CR99-3342]

HONORABLE JOHN W.

LANGSTON, CIRCUIT JUDGE

AFFIRMED

Appellant, Hosea Keys, was tried by a jury and convicted of the offenses of rape and residential burglary in Case No. CR99-3342. He was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for the rape and twenty years' imprisonment for the residential burglary. The sentences were ordered to run consecutively for a total of thirty years. At the time appellant committed these two offenses he was on probation in Case No. CR98-3517, a case in which he had pleaded guilty to the offenses of residential burglary and first-degree terroristic threatening, and therefore the State, appellee, filed a petition to revoke appellant's probation in that case based upon the commission of the offenses alleged in Case No. CR99-3342. The trial court granted appellee's petition to revoke after the jury returned its guilty verdicts in Case No. CR99-3342, and the court sentenced appellant to ten years for the residential burglary and six years for the first-degree terroristic threatening, to run concurrently to each other but

consecutively to the cumulative thirty-year sentence in Case No. CR99-3342. Appellant filed a notice of appeal in both cases.

Pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), and Rule 4-3(j) of the Rules of the Arkansas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, appellant's attorney has filed a motion to withdraw, contending that the appeal is without merit. This motion was accompanied by an abstract and brief that contains the rulings decided adversely to appellant and sufficient portions of the record to support the arguments that the rulings do not provide a meritorious ground for reversal.

Counsel discusses four adverse rulings and explains why each would not provide a meritorious ground for reversal. The first involved the trial court's denial of appellant's motion to suppress his custodial statement. We agree that the trial court did not err in doing so. Moreover, an argument based on the denial of this motion is made even more frivolous by the fact that the State did not offer the statement into evidence. The second adverse ruling involved the trial court's denial of appellant's motion to quash the entire jury panel, a motion that was subsequently withdrawn by appellant and, therefore, does not provide a meritorious ground for reversal. The third ruling discussed by appellant's counsel involved a defense objection based on hearsay. The objection does not provide a meritorious ground for reversal for several reasons, the two most obvious of which are because the objection either was not decided adversely to appellant or appellant failed to obtain a ruling on it. Regardless, appellant suffered no prejudice. The objection was raised during the State's direct examination of Officer Robert Martin:

[Defense Counsel]: Objection, hearsay.

The Court: All right.

[Prosecutor]: What apartment did you go to when you arrived?

[Officer Martin]: I'm not sure of the number of the apartment that I first arrived at.

The trial court's response to the objection, "All right," might well be regarded as sustaining appellant's objection because the prosecutor steered the questioning away from what the victim had told Officer Bracy. Moreover, even if the trial court's response is regarded as an adverse ruling to appellant, there was no prejudice because the hearsay testimony did not continue. The final adverse rulings discussed by appellant involved the trial court's denial of the motions for directed verdict in Case No. CR99-3342, and we agree that the motions were not sufficiently specific to preserve an issue of the sufficiency of the evidence. In addition, we note from our review of the record that the trial court granted the State's motion to compel the taking of a blood specimen from appellant, which could be considered a ruling adverse to appellant; however, appellant did not object to the motion and consequently failed to preserve any such issue for appellate review.

The clerk of this court furnished appellant with a copy of his counsel's brief and notified him of his right to file pro se points for reversal within thirty days. Appellant did not file any such points.

From our review of the record and the brief presented to us, we find that there was sufficient compliance with Rule 4-3(j) and that the appeal is without merit. Accordingly, counsel's motion to be relieved is granted, the judgment of conviction is affirmed in Case No. CR99-3342, and the order of revocation is affirmed in Case No. CR98-3517.

Affirmed.

Hart and Neal, JJ., agree.