ARKANSAS SUPREME COURT
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
 

JANUARY 15, 2004

SAMUEL GRAVES

Petitioner

v.

STATE OF ARKANSAS

Respondent

CACR 00-1059

PRO SE MOTION FOR PHOTOCOPY OF TRIAL TRANSCRIPT AT PUBLIC EXPENSE [CIRCUIT COURT OF PULASKI COUNTY, NO. CR 99-1458]

MOTION DENIED

Per Curiam

In 2000, Samuel Graves was found guilty of attempted rape and sentenced to seventy-two months' imprisonment. An appeal of the judgment was lodged in the Arkansas Court of Appeals and subsequently dismissed on the appellant's motion on October 23, 2000. Graves now seeks by pro se motion a photocopy at public expense of the transcript lodged on appeal.1 As grounds for the request, petitioner Graves states only that he is indigent and that he needs a copy of the transcript to decide issues of ineffective assistance of counsel and unspecified violations of three constitutional amendments.

The motion is denied. A petitioner is not entitled to photocopying at public expense unless he or she demonstrates some compelling need for specific documentary evidence to support an allegation contained in a timely petition for postconviction relief. Moore v. State, 324 Ark. 453, 921 S.W.2d 606 (1996); Brooks v. State, 303 Ark. 188 S.W.2d 792 (1990); see Austin v. State, 287 Ark. 256, 697 S.W.2d 914 (1985). Indigency alone does not entitle petitioner to photocopying at public expense. Washington v. State, 270 Ark. 840, 606 S.W.2d 365 (1980).

The appeal in petitioner's case was dismissed in 2000. Rule 37.2(c) requires that a petition for postconviction relief be filed within sixty days of the date an appeal is dismissed. Petitioner could not file a timely petition pursuant to Rule 37 at this time, and he does not contend that there is some other postconviction remedy available to him for which access to a copy of the transcript lodged on appeal is necessary.

It should be noted that when an appeal has been lodged in this court or the court of appeals, the transcript remains permanently on file with the clerk. Persons may review a transcript in the clerk's office and photocopy all or portions of it. An incarcerated person desiring a photocopy of a transcript may write this court, remit the photocopying fee, and request that the copy be mailed to the prison. All persons, including prisoners, must bear the cost of photocopying. Moore v. State, supra.

Motion denied.

1 For clerical purposes, the motion has been filed under the docket number assigned to the direct appeal of the judgment which was lodged in the court of appeals. This court decides motions for transcript because such motions are considered to be requests for postconviction relief. See Williams v. State, 273 Ark. 315, 619 S.W.2d 628 (1981).