Eric Burgie v. Arkansas

Under Arkansas law, Mr. Burgie had a right to have his illegal sentences corrected but the Arkansas state courts denied his petition and post-conviction appeal without considering his due process-nonexistent offense and separation of power claim(s). The petitioner asks this court to decide whether the fundamental fairness principle in due process clause required state court to provide him with a fair hearing on his claims?

This court decisions suggest that application of resjudicata-claim preclusion to a litigants claim is only allowed when it has been shown that Mr. Burgie have been given a full and fair opportunity to litigate the claims in the prior action. The petitioner ask this court to decide whether the state court denied Burgie due process when it applied claim preclusive effect to his claims without first making a determination that those claims had been denied on the merits in prior actions for post conviction relief?

The petitioner ask this court to decide whether state court must determine whether Burgie was provided with a full and fair opportunity to litigate his claims in prior litigation where application of res adjudicate rule would unfairly deny Burgie review and conflict with state law rule that illegal sentence claims may be brought at any time?

Prior to Burgie’s 2001 capital murder and aggravated robbery convictions the Arkansas Supreme Court in its decision in Simpson expanded the reach of the pre-2007 capital murder statute to include the unenumerated offense of “aggravated robbery.” In later cases the court upheld its holding on the ground that aggravated robbery is still robbery, as though these were the same exact offenses under Arkansas law but they are not. On April 2, 2007 the Arkansas legislature amended the capital murder statute to include