Full Opinion

Cite as 2026 Ark. 123 SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS No. CR-26-12 Opinion Delivered: October 1, 2026 WILLIE LEON MOTT, JR. APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 60CR-24-1372] V. HONORABLE KAREN WHATLEY, JUDGE STATE OF ARKANSAS APPELLEE AFFIRMED. CODY HILAND, Associate Justice Willie Leon Mott, Jr., appeals his convictions and life sentences1 for the first-degree murder of Teangela Tate, the capital murder of her infant son, and the attempted capital murder of her toddler son. On appeal, he argues that insufficient evidence supported his convictions and that a portion of Arkansas’s capital-murder statute, specifically Arkansas Code Annotated § 5-10-101(a)(9)(A) (Repl. 2014), is unconstitutionally vague. His arguments are unconvincing. Thus, we affirm. I. Factual Background In the morning hours of February 13, 2024, a law enforcement officer with the Arkansas Highway Police discovered Teangela Tate’s body on an embankment next to an on-ramp for Interstate 440. North Little Rock Police and the Arkansas State Police later 1 Mott received a life sentence for the murder of Teangela and a separate life sentence for the attempted capital murder of MV2. The sentence for murdering Teangela runs concurrently with his life sentence without parole for the capital murder of MV1, while the sentence for attempting to murder MV2 runs consecutively to the MV1 sentence. arrived at the scene. Teangela had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and her death was ruled a homicide. At the bottom of the same embankment, Detectives Michael Gibbons and Cody Brown with the North Little Rock Police Department found a car seat and two small children who appeared to be deceased. One child, MV1, was dead upon arrival. Another child, MV2, however, was still alive. Officer Roderick Quinn with the North Little Rock Police Department assisted the detectives and administered aid to MV2 until medical services arrived. Officer Quinn testified that MV2’s clothing was soaking wet, he was “barely breathing,” had “a very faint pulse,” and was “very cold to the touch.” MV1 succumbed to multiple blunt-force injuries, including scalp bruising, a skull fracture, facial contusions and abrasions, and a collarbone fracture, as well as complications from the harsh environmental exposure. In the course of investigating the crime scene, Detective Brown learned of Teangela’s identity and her relationship with Mott. Later that day, law enforcement located Mott at his mother’s house in Jacksonville and placed him into custody. During his arrest, Mott’s mother expressed a concern about his cell phone, to which Mott responded, “I do not have a cell phone, and there’s not one in the house.” That evening shortly after midnight, however, Mott called his mother from jail and instructed her to get his cell phone, “break the screen,” and “soak it in water” because the police were “trying to trap [him].” Detective Jeff Coburn with the North Little Rock Police Department, a qualified expert in cell-phone-record analysis, reviewed the records of Mott’s cell phone from T- Mobile. He found that at 4:38 on the morning of February 12, 2024, the night of the murders and attempted murder, Mott’s cell phone traveled from his house in Jacksonville 2 to the location where the victims’ bodies were found and back home over a twenty-eight- minute period. Terrance Sloan, a friend of Teangela’s, testified that he received a FaceTime call from her around 1:00 that same morning. She was holding an infant in a kitchen, and there was a lot of background noise. A forensic evaluation of Mott’s house revealed a single bullet hole that entered the living-room wall and exited near the adjacent carport. A bullet fragment was found outside on the ground near the carport. In the living room, officers found a shell casing and blood on the arm-rest and at the bottom of a couch as well as on the floor and on a box. Officers also took swabs from the interior and exterior of the trunk of Mott’s mother’s gray Toyota Corolla. The Arkansas State Crime Laboratory tested the swabs from the house and the car, the bullet fragment, and the shell casing. They all tested positive for human blood. An examiner with the ASCL determined that the caliber of two of the bullets recovered from Teangela’s body were consistent with the caliber of shell casings found in Mott’s house. A DNA analyst with the ASCL testified that the blood swabs from the house and the car were consistent with Teangela’s DNA. Further swabs were taken from a piece of tape found on Teangela’s feet that showed a mixture of DNA: 83 percent belonging to Teangela and 17 percent belonging to a male. When asked whether Mott could be excluded as the contributor for the minor component of the DNA mixture, the analyst stated that it was against ASCL policy to state such a conclusion when the DNA sample was too limited, as it was here. After the prosecution rested at trial, Mott moved for a directed verdict on each of the four counts. He argued that any conclusion that he killed Teangela would require 3 speculation and conjecture as there were no eyewitnesses and the evidence merely demonstrated that she was “at some point prior to her death . . . in [his] company.” He further argued that the blood found in the house and the car was attributable to his relationship with Teangela. He asked that the same arguments apply to the counts for the capital murder of MV1 and attempted capital murder of MV2. He also moved to reduce the charges to first- or second-degree murder and first- or second-degree attempted murder, respectively. As to the tampering charge, he argued that the evidence was insufficient because he merely “asked [his] mother to do something with the phone, not that anything had actually been done” to it. The circuit court denied all of his motions. Mott rested without calling any witnesses and renewed his motions, which the circuit court again denied. During an October 2024 hearing, which occurred over a year prior to trial, Mott claimed that the phrase “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life” is not defined in Arkansas’s capital-murder statute. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10- 101(a)(9)(A). To support this claim, he opined that this court is “all over the map in its contradictory attempts to define it” and that it is unclear whether the phrase refers to a culpable mental state or is merely descriptive. The circuit court denied this motion as well as his twice-renewed motions on this matter. Mott now appeals. II. Law & Analysis A. Sufficiency of the Evidence First, Mott argues that the circuit court erred in denying his motion for directed verdict. Specifically, he alleges that the jury resorted to speculation and conjecture to 4 convict him. Mott believes that the evidence of Teangela’s DNA found in his house and his mother’s car was not indicative of a crime, but instead was a hallmark of his “longstanding relationship” with her. Moreover, he believes that he should have been properly excluded as the minor contributor to the 17 percent of unidentified DNA found on Teangela at the time of her death and that any connection to that DNA required the jury to speculate. Mott points out that the only evidence that “would substantially point guilt” in his direction was that of his cell-phone data, and he contends that this evidence was insufficient to convict him. We disagree. Substantial evidence supports Mott’s convictions and life sentence. On appeal, we treat a motion for directed verdict as a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Clevenger v. State, 2025 Ark. 128, at 6, 719 S.W.3d 453, 459. When reviewing the appellant’s challenge, we view the evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict to determine whether there is substantial evidence supporting that verdict. Parris v. State, 2026 Ark. 57, at 5, 727 S.W.3d 603, 607 (citing Matthews v. State, 2025 Ark. 213, at 4–5, 725 S.W.3d 16, 19). We do not reweigh the evidence or substitute our judgment for that of the jury. Id., 727 S.W.3d at 607. Substantial evidence is evidence of a sufficient force and character that it will, with reasonable certainty, compel a conclusion one way or the other without resorting to speculation or conjecture. Clevenger, 2025 Ark. 128, at 6, 719 S.W.3d at 459. Circumstantial evidence may provide a basis to support a conviction, but it must be consistent with the defendant’s guilt and inconsistent with any other reasonable conclusion. Id., 719 S.W.3d at 459. Furthermore, in resolving conflicting testimony and inconsistent evidence, it is the jury’s role to assess witness credibility and resolve discrepancies in the evidence. Id., 719 5 S.W.3d at 459. The jury is entitled to accept the State’s version of the facts over the defendant’s, resolve any inconsistent testimony, and accept or reject any alternative theories. Clevenger, 2025 Ark. 128, at 6–7, 719 S.W.3d at 459–60. Lastly, efforts to conceal a crime and evade detection, along with false, improbable, or contradictory statements to explain suspicious circumstances may be considered as evidence of guilt. Howard v. State, 2016 Ark. 434, at 13, 506 S.W.3d 843, 850. Teangela’s blood was found on a couch and on the floors and walls of the living room in Mott’s house. Her blood was also found near the carport of Mott’s house and in the trunk of his mother’s car. A bullet fragment found next to the carport and a spent shell casing found in the living room matched the caliber of the two bullets recovered from Teangela’s body. Teangela was on a FaceTime call with a friend around 1:00 on the morning of her murder who overheard someone in the house with her talking and yelling. Three hours later, Mott’s phone was seen making a twenty-eight-minute trip from his house to the exact location where the victims’ bodies were found and then back home. After Mott was arrested that morning, he initially told his mother that he did not have a cell phone. Later that evening, he called her from jail and instructed her to destroy it. This was more than sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude, without resorting to speculation and conjecture, that Mott committed these heinous crimes. A conviction does not require a confession, a murder weapon, fingerprints, or DNA evidence directly linking the accused to the crime scene. In McClendon v. State, we upheld a capital-murder conviction based on substantial circumstantial evidence that the appellant had been at the victim’s house, that his vehicle returned there, that spent shell casings and bullets from the 6 crime scene matched a weapon found in his house, and that he attempted to conceal his involvement. 2019 Ark. 88, at 3–5, 570 S.W.3d 450, 453. The circumstances here are strikingly similar. The jury was entitled to accept the State’s theory of the case and reject Mott’s alternative explanations for the evidence. Viewed as a whole, the evidence was sufficient to support his convictions. Accordingly, the circuit court did not err in denying Mott’s motions for directed verdict. B. Constitutionality of Arkansas Code Annotated Section 5-10-101(a)(9)(A) Next, this case requires us to revisit an argument we recently considered in Torres v. State, 2026 Ark. 88, 732 S.W.3d 697. As the appellant in Torres, Mott takes issue with the following statutory language: [a] person commits capital murder if . . . [u]nder circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, the person knowingly causes the death of a person fourteen (14) years of age or younger at the time the murder was committed if the defendant was eighteen (18) years of age or older at the time the murder was committed. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-101(a)(9)(A); Torres, 2026 Ark. 88, at 3, 732 S.W.3d at 699. Mott similarly argues that the phrase “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life” is unconstitutionally vague. Mott acknowledges, as the appellant did in Torres, that this court has consistently rejected this argument but nevertheless urges us to revisit those cases, overrule them, and find this statutory language unconstitutional. We again reject this request. Statutes are presumed constitutional. Torres, 2026 Ark. 88, at 3, 732 S.W.3d at 699. “The void-for-vagueness doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense 7 with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Id., 732 S.W.3d at 699 (quoting Anderson v. State, 2017 Ark. 357, at 4, 533 S.W.3d 64, 67). The language at issue—“under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life”—provides sufficient notice to both the accused and the jury about the conduct proscribed. Id., 732 S.W.3d at 699. The language, furthermore, does not require reasonable minds to speculate as to its common understanding or application. Id. at 4, 732 S.W.3d at 699. This language plainly means “deliberate conduct that culminates in the death of another person.” Id. at 4, 732 S.W.3d at 699–700 (quoting Price v. State, 373 Ark. 435, 439, 284 S.W.3d 462, 465–66 (2008)). Thus, the State bears the burden of proving “a mental state on the part of the accused to engage in some life-threatening activity against the victim.” Torres, 2026 Ark. 88, at 4, 732 S.W.3d at 700. Just as we did a few short months ago, we affirm our decision in Martin and the other cases that have followed. Arkansas’s capital-murder statute is not unconstitutionally vague. “It is impossible to avoid the use of general language in the definition of certain offenses.” Id., 732 S.W.3d at 700 (quoting Stacy v. State, 2023 Ark. 176, at 7, 678 S.W.3d 773, 777). In fact, “[t]he definitions put the accused, the prosecutors, and the jury on notice of the prohibited conduct.” Id., 732 S.W.3d at 700. Mott’s argument on this point fails. III. Conclusion For these reasons, we hold that substantial evidence supported the circuit court’s denial of Mott’s motion for directed verdict and that Arkansas Code Annotated section 5- 10-101(a)(9)(A) is not unconstitutionally vague. Accordingly, we affirm. 8 Affirmed. Special Justices MILTON FINE and CORY COX join. BAKER, C.J., and WEBB, J., not participating. Jeff Rosenzweig and George (Birc) Morledge, for appellant. Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: James Hill, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee. 9