ARKANSAS SUPREME COURT

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

OCTOBER 30, 2003

HORACHEL BOYD JR.

Appellant

v.

STATE OF ARKANSAS

Appellee

03-247

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF LEE COUNTY, CV 2002-74, HONORABLE HARVEY LEE YATES, JUDGE

AFFIRMED

Per Curiam

Appellant is serving a sentence of life plus twenty year's imprisonment in the Arkansas Department of Correction for pleading guilty to first-degree murder and three counts of rape. On June 26, 2002, appellant filed in the Lee County Circuit Court a petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus. Appellant contended in the petition that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, that his counsel's representation resulted in a denial of due process, and that he was actually innocent of first-degree murder. The circuit court denied appellant's petition. We agree and affirm.

A writ of habeas corpus is proper when a judgment of conviction is invalid on its face or when a circuit court lacked jurisdiction over the cause. Davis v. Reed, 316 Ark. 575, 577, 873 S.W.2d 524, 525 (1994). A habeas corpus proceeding does not afford a prisoner an opportunity to retry his case. Meny v. Norris, 340 Ark. 418, 420, 13 S.W.3d 143, 144 (2000). Nor does it act as a substitute for a petition for postconviction relief pursuant to Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37. Cothrine v. State, 322 Ark. 112, 114, 907 S.W.2d 134, 135 (1995).

The claims raised by appellant in his petition were not sufficient to demonstrate that the trialcourt lacked jurisdiction or that his judgment of conviction was invalid on its face. Appellant's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, for example, is one that should have been raised in a petition for relief pursuant to Ark. R. Crim. P. 37 (2002). Moreover, on appeal, appellant has abandoned the claims in his petition and now asserts that the trial court erred in accepting his guilty plea and sentencing him to life plus twenty years' imprisonment. It is well settled that this court does not consider an argument raised for the first time on appeal. Branscum v. State, 345 Ark. 21, 33, 43 S.W.3d 148, 155 (2001). Because appellant failed to raise any claim upon which a writ of habeas corpus could issue, we affirm the order of the circuit court denying his petition.

Affirmed.