The appellants were convicted of the misdemeanor offense of hunting turkey in a closed zone. The Conway Municipal Court suspended the appellants’ hunting licenses for one year and fined them each $500 with $300 suspended. Appellants’ attorney, David L. Gibbons, failed to perfect their appeal in the Faulkner County Circuit Court. Their newly retained attorney filed in circuit court a motion for belated appeal and a motion for Rule 37 relief alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. The trial court denied the appellants’ requested relief. We affirm.
Arkansas Inferior Court Rule 9 governs an appeal from municipal court to circuit court. It provides in pertinent part the following:
(a) All appeals in civil cases from inferior courts to circuit courts must be filed in the office of the clerk of the particular circuit court having jurisdiction of the appeal *137within thirty (30) days from the date of the entry of the judgment.
(b) An appeal from an inferior court to the circuit court shall be taken by filing a record of the proceedings had in the inferior court. It shall be the duty of the clerk to prepare and certify such record when requested by the appellant and the appellant shall have the responsibility of filing such record in the office of the circuit clerk. . . .
This court has interpreted this filing requirement to be mandatory and jurisdictional. See, e.g., Wheeler v. City of Arkadelphia, 254 Ark. 533, 495 S.W.2d 862 (1973). Further, it is the duty of the counsel, not the judge, clerk, or reporter, to perfect the appeal. Lowe v. State, No. CR 89-160 (October 2, 1989).
Since the appellants’ appeal was untimely pursuant to Rule 9, they filed a petition for belated appeal in the circuit court with an affidavit from their first attorney admitting responsibility for failing to perfect their appeal. Pursuant to A.R.Cr.P. Rule 36.9, this court may grant a belated appeal, in criminal cases, when a good reason for failing to perfect the appeal is shown by affidavit.1 But, there is no rule that gives the circuit court authority to accept untimely appeals. In fact, in Gray v. State, 277 Ark. 442, 642 S.W.2d 306 (1982), this court held that a trial court had no authority to grant a belated appeal. Here, the trial court acted properly in denying the appellants’ motion for belated appeal.
Likewise, we affirm the trial court’s denial of appellants’ Rule 37 petition. Pursuant to A.R.Cr.P. Rule 37, post-conviction relief is available where a prisoner is in custody under sentence of a circuit court and whose case was not appealed to the supreme court or court of appeals. Clearly, the appellants were not in custody and were not sentenced by the circuit court.2
*138In affirming the trial court, we mention the appellants’ constitutional argument concerning their right to a jury trial. In Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968), the Supreme Court held that defendants are not entitled to a jury trial for petty offenses. Here, the offense with which appellants were charged and convicted was a petty offense and one for which they had no constitutional right to a jury. Cf. Johnston v. City of Pine Bluff, 258 Ark. 346, 525 S.W.2d 76 (1975).
Appellants also cite art. 2, § 7 of the Arkansas constitution and claim that its provisions guarantee their right to a jury trial in all cases at law without regard to the amount of controversy. However, persons are not entitled to a jury trial in municipal court except that such right to jury remains inviolate when they pursue their appeal to circuit court where their case is tried de novo. See Ark. Code Ann. §§ 16-17-703 and -704 (Supp. 1987). That appeal, as previously discussed above, must be properly perfected; the circuit court has no authority to accept untimely appeals. In other words, in order to exercise this right in circumstances as those present here, a timely appeal must have been filed pursuant to Arkansas Inferior Court Rule 9.
For the reasons stated above, we affirm.
Purtle and Newbern, JJ., concur.