ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

CHIEF JUDGE JOHN F. STROUD, JR.

DIVISION IV

LEON CRAFT

APPELLANT

V.

STATE OF ARKANSAS

APPELLEE

CACR 01-1238

February 5, 2003

APPEAL FROM THE MISSISSIPPI

COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT

[CR-2000-108]

HONORABLE VICTOR LAMONT

HILL, CIRCUIT JUDGE

AFFIRMED

Appellant, Leon Craft, was tried by a jury and found guilty of the felony offense of theft of property of a Rug Doctor carpet cleaner that was valued between $500 and $2500. He was sentenced as a habitual offender to twenty years in the Arkansas Department of Correction. We affirm.

Appellant raises two points of appeal: (1) the court erred when it advised the jury panel prior to trial that the appellant was charged as a habitual offender; (2) the State failed to establish the value of the property allegedly stolen and thereby failed to prove an essential element of the crime. We are not able to address the merits of either point because they were not preserved for our review.

It is undisputed that at the beginning of the trial proceedings, the trial court read to the jury both counts of the information against appellant. The second count alleged that

appellant was subject to enhanced punishment because of his being convicted of four or more prior felony offenses. Appellant acknowledges that no objection was raised below on this issue; however, he contends that the court's actions in this regard were "so fundamentally unfair and prejudicial to the Defendant that relief is appropriate." He cites no legal authority for this proposition, and we disagree with his contention. Our decision in Benton v. State, 41 Ark. App. 167, 850 S.W.2d 36 (1993) (holding that the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion for mistrial after court read the habitual-offender portion of the information to the jury panel), would support reversal on this basis if the issue had been properly preserved below. It was not.

We have long held that we will address and/or raise on our own motion subject-matter jurisdiction questions even if they were not raised below. State v. Dawson, 343 Ark. 683, 38 S.w.3d 319 (2001). In addition, we have also previously outlined other limited circumstances under which we will review an issue even if it was not raised below:

There are only four exceptions to [the rule that we will generally not consider errors raised for the first time on appeal]: (1) when error is made by a trial court without knowledge of the defense counsel who thus has no opportunity to object; (2) when a trial court should intervene on its own motion to correct a serious error by admonition or by mistrial; (3) when evidentiary errors affect a defendant's substantial rights although they were not brought to the court's attention; and (4) in death-penalty cases when prejudice is conclusively shown by the record and we would unquestionably require the trial court to grant relief under Ark. R. Crim. P. 37; in all other circumstances a contemporaneous objection is required to preserve a point for review.

Cook v. State, 76 Ark. App. 447, 453-54, 68 S.W.3d 308, 313 (2002). We conclude that the circumstances presented here do not fall within any of these exceptions.

For his second point of appeal, appellant contends that the State failed to establish the value of the property allegedly stolen and thereby failed to prove an essential element of the crime. Again, we do not address the merits of this issue because it was not properly preserved below.

The value of the stolen property is an element of the crime, and any argument that the State failed in its proof on that element would be a sufficiency-of-the-evidence argument, requiring appellant to move for directed verdict. Appellant did not move for a directed verdict at either the close of the State's case or at the close of all of the evidence. The failure to do so precludes appellate review of this point. Smith v. State, 347 Ark. 277, 61 S.W.3d 168 (2001).

Affirmed.

Hart and Griffen, JJ., agree.