ARKANSAS SUPREME COURT

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

PER CURIAM

JANUARY 24, 2002

MARTIN HINKLE

Appellant

v.

STATE OF ARKANSAS

Appellee

CR00-1477

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF PULASKI COUNTY, NO. CR 97-3763, HONORABLE JOHN B. PLEGGE, JUDGE

AFFIRMED

Appellant was convicted of aggravated robbery and theft of property and was sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment. The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction in Hinkle v. State, CA CR 99-761 (Ark. App. Mar. 15, 2000). Appellant filed a petition for postconviction relief pursuant to Ark. R. Crim. P. 37 and an amended petition, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel. Because the circuit court did not act on appellant's first petition, he was allowed to proceed with his amended petition. The circuit court denied the petition and from that order comes this appeal. We decline to consider appellant's arguments, because he has failed to produce a record on appeal sufficient to demonstrate error.

Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-2(a)(6) requires an appellant to include an abstract of the record consisting of the material parts of the record that are necessary to an understanding of the questions presented for decision.1 The appellant bears the responsibility of producing a sufficient abstract, and the failure to do so prevents the court from reaching the merits of appellant's argument. Hill v. State, 337 Ark. 219, 223-24, 988 S.W.2d 487, 490 (1999). With the exception of material included in the addendum, the record on appeal is confined to that which is abstracted. Huddleston v. State, 339 Ark. 266, 273, 5 S.W.3d 46, 50-51 (1999). We have noted that with only one record on appeal and seven justices, it is essential that the material parts of the record be abstracted. Id. We will not explore the record for prejudicial error. Owens v. State, 325 Ark. 93, 94, 924 S.W.2d 459, 459 (1996).

Appellant has failed to adequately abstract both his original petition and the amended petition. He simply states that the petitions were filed but gives no information regarding the substance of his claims. Accordingly, appellant's failure to abstract critical documents precludes this court from considering issues concerning it. Watson v. State, 329 Ark. 511, 512, 951 S.W.2d 304, 305 (1997).

Affirmed.

1 Cases in which the record is lodged in the Supreme Court or Court of Appeals on or after September 1, 2001, will no longer be affirmed because of the insufficiency of the abstract without the appellant first having the opportunity to cure the deficiencies. See In re: Modification of the Abstracting System -- Amendments to Supreme Court Rules 2-3, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, Ark. Appx. __, __ S.W.3d __ (2001) (per curiam). The record in the instant case was filed before September 1, 2001.