Smith v. State

Tom Glaze, Justice.

James Edward Smith was convicted of rape, kidnapping and breaking or entering, and he received a cumulative sentence of forty years imprisonment. On appeal, he challenges the sufficiency of the evidence regarding his kidnapping conviction, and further argues that the court’s application of Arkansas’s new bifurcation sentencing laws, Acts 535 and 551 of 1993 (codified at Ark. Code Ann. §§ 5-4-103 (Repl. 1993) and 16-97-101 — 103 (Supp. 1993) violated his federal and state constitutional protections against ex-post facto laws.

First, we dispose of Smith’s constitutional…