I have two comments about the video.
First, it is very well done. It would be a shame if the quality was so shoddy that it was a distraction to the prospective jurors. I am impressed with the quality.
Second, I think any trial lawyer should watch it. It is the first thing the jurors hear. Why would you not want to see what information they are getting? I say this because in my jurisdiction, the attorneys are not in the courtroom when the jurors watch the video.
You can watch the video here.
The appeal was based on the trial court’s failure to exclude an alleged accomplice’s testimony from consideration when making its ruling. Ark. Code. Ann. 16-89-111(e)(1)(a) states that before a conviction can be had on the testimony of an accomplice, there must be corroborating evidence tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime.
The Arkansas Appeal court agreed that there was scant or no evidence connecting my client to the commission of the crime.
You can read the opinion here.
The case was tried at the level by Bill Lewellen and myself.
The local paper, The Evening Times, reported on the story here.
BERRYVILLE — Lawyer Cindy Baker, 36, was arrested on charges two counts of delivering methamphetamine Friday night in a raid of her home and office on U. S. Highway 62 in downtown Berryville.
The amount of the drug recovered from her office-home was not made public. Other items seized included “syringes that appear to contain blood,” according to court records.
Sheriff Bob Grudek said Monday that there had been rumors about Baker but “suspicion is not sufficient” and a case had to be made that would stand up in court.
Investigator J. J. Reddick’s affidavit for search and arrest warrants says an informant wired for audio and video surveillance went to Baker’s office-home Oct. 22, and the two went over Baker’s ledger showing what the informant owed Baker for previous methamphetamine purchases.
The two discussed a previous transaction in which Baker supplied the informant with seven grams of methamphetamine and told the informant to keep one gram and sell the rest for Baker, the affidavit says.
The informant also wore a wire in the two transactions that prompted the charges of delivery of methamphetamine, a Class Y felony, which is the most serious level under Arkansas law:
• The sheriff said the confidential informant bought a gram of what is believed to be methamphetamine for $200 from Baker at her office-home Wednesday.
The bills turned up when authorities seized $1,000 in cash from suspected meth supplier Mynor Jimmy Aleman-Gonzalez later the same day, the sheriff said. Jail records show Aleman-Gonzalez, 24, of Green Forest was jailed Wednesday on charges of delivering a controlled substance.
• The same confidential informant bought a half gram of what was believed to be methamphetamine from Baker for $50 Friday, the sheriff said. He said the informant gave Baker a $100 bill and received $50 in change.
Search and arrest warrants were issued, and the $100 bill that the confidential informant gave her for the drug earlier Friday was taken from Baker during her drug arrest, the sheriff said.
The charges include two counts of delivering methamphetamine, a count of conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance and delivery of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of Berryville High School and First Methodist Church.
Read more here.
The Obama administration announces that they will no longer seek to exercise federal prohibitions against States allowing pot smoking under certain circumstances.
Chalk me up as one more conservative who does not have a problem going green.
Federal drug agents won’t pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.
Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.
The guidelines to be issued by the department do, however, make it clear that agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes, the officials said.
The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes…
This is a major step forward,” said Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project. “This change in policy moves the federal government dramatically toward respecting scientific and practical reality.”
Read the entire story here.
UPDATE: Top L.A. Prosecutor Steve Cooley is not listening.
The defense team for Damien Echols issued a press release today claiming there are new eyewitnesses.
ArkansasMatters.com reports the West Memphis 3 story here.
An excerpt of the release is as follows:
Three eyewitnesses have come forward and provided sworn statements that they saw Steven Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore with Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Steven Branch, at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 5, 1993, immediately before the time the boys disappeared. Hobbs was calling loudly at the children and ordering them to return to his house. The new evidence establishes that the last person who had custody of the three boys before they vanished and died was Terry Hobbs. Jamie Clark Ballard, who lived only three doors down from Terry and Pam Hobbs, has supplied a sworn affidavit, as have both her mother and her sister.
“More than 1,200 driving while intoxicated convictions in Harris County are invalid after a contractor was convicted of faking inspections of alcohol breath testing devices, prosecutors said.
Deetrice Wallace, a Department of Public Safety contractor, told investigators that she had falsified inspections records for the South Houston and Clute police department intoxilyzers.”
This story illustrates that every single aspect of the record keeping and inspections should be targeted during the cross examination of a DWI case.
I am taking notes.
Read the whole story here.
In a story by the Associated Press:
Fiddling with your iPhone behind the wheel can get you fined across much of the nation. But many states are more than happy to tweet you with up-to-the-minute directions on how to steer clear of a traffic jam.
It is a mixed signal that some safety experts and politicians say could be dangerous.
I am not surprised that the State of Arkansas found a way to reconcile the two. “Please check from home,” they say. It is undisputed that twitter targets mobile users so this position seems disingenuous or ignorant.
Secondly, where do law enforcement draw the line? Is it illegal to look at the time on your cell phone? Is it illegal to hit one key to see the time? How many buttons do you have to hit before it becomes a misdemeanor? How does an officer know whether you are looking at the time or texting?
This law seems like a nightmare to enforce but a dream come true for officers looking for probable cause to look for something else.
| By: Associated Press – Texarkana Gazette - | Published: 10/09/2009 |
LITTLE ROCK—The Arkansas Supreme Court listened Thursday as lawyers argued whether a new law fulfills its aim by clarifying the state’s lethal injection procedures or puts death-row inmates at greater risk of suffering unconstitutional harm.
A federal public defender for death-row inmate Frank Williams Jr. claimed the new law puts additional mental stress on all condemned inmates, and public defender Josh Lee claimed it strips away regulations that required the state prison system to use a three-drug cocktail approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Under the new statute, we have no way of knowing what procedure will be used,” Lee said. Without that oversight, he said the risk of botched executions grows. He mentioned a recent Ohio case where an inmate undergoing a failed lethal injection wept as executioners stuck him with needles as many as 18 times.
Nevertheless, the justices’ questioning appeared to give the state an edge.
Justin Allen, the state’s chief deputy attorney general, said there would be no repeat of the Ohio case in Arkansas. Allen said the new law passed by the Legislature this year made public the amount and kind of drugs used by executioners and that the state’s prison director couldn’t use “rat poison” or anything else to execute prisoners, as he would be subject immediately to a federal lawsuit.
“As a practical matter, Larry Norris or any other prison director would be out of his mind not to follow” the law, Allen said.
Justice Robert L. Brown said he agreed with Allen’s point, one of the few moments that indicated what the justices thought.
The justices gave no indication of when they might rule.
Federal public defenders representing Williams filed the lawsuit in 2008, as their client faced a scheduled execution. They argued the state prison system had altered its execution protocols without following a requirement that state agencies offer notifications and hold public hearings when they change administrative rules.
A lower court judge issued an injunction halting Williams’ execution and the case quickly made its way to the state’s highest court. While there, lawmakers passed a law freeing the state prison system from following the public notification and hearing rule when it came to execution
By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The state Supreme Court today reinstated the felony manslaughter convictions of a former prosecutor who killed an elderly couple in a head-on car crash in Perry County.
The state’s highest court overturned an Arkansas Court of Appeals ruling that threw out Vance Benton Rollins Jr.’s two felony manslaughter convictions in connection with a March 22, 2006, accident that killed Lawrence Humphries, 76, and his 69-year-old wife, Nina.
Rollins, a former Ouachita County deputy prosecutor and Camden city attorney, was sentenced to eight years in prison for the crash, but in February the Court of Appeals modified his conviction from two felony counts of manslaughter to two misdemeanor counts of negligent homicide and reduced his sentence to one year in jail.
The appeals court said prosecutors never proved their assertion that Rollins was impaired by drugs at the time of the crash, only that he was driving badly.
The state appealed, and in a 6-1 decision Thursday the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court and reinstated Rollins’ felony convictions and eight-year prison term.
In the majority opinion written by Justice Elana Cunningham Wills, the court said according to evidence presented at Rollins’ trial, hydrocodone and acetaminophen pills and pipes that tested positive for cocaine residue were found in Rollins’ vehicle after the crash. Also, blood tests detected small amounts of Zoloft and cocaine in Rollins’ system.
A forensic toxicologist testified at the trial that she could not be certain Rollins was impaired. Asked how long the drugs would have to be in a person’s system before blood tests could no longer detect them, the toxicologist said it would take over eight hours.
The jury could infer from the testimony that Rollins had taken drugs within eight hours of getting behind the wheel, the Supreme Court said. That inference, combined with witnesses’ statements that Rollins was driving erratically before the crash, could support a finding that Rollins recklessly caused the Humphries’ deaths, the court said.
“While no evidence was presented of Rollins’ level of impairment or intoxication from ingesting cocaine, we note that such evidence is not necessary to sustain a conviction for reckless manslaughter,” Wills wrote in the majority opinion. “Rather, the state needed only to prove that Rollins recklessly caused the death of another person.”
Chief Justice Jim Hannah wrote in a dissenting opinion that he believed the Court of Appeals’ ruling should be upheld.
Because the state did not establish that Rollins was intoxicated, the issue of driving under the influence was “a closed question,” and all that remained of the state’s case was evidence of bad driving, which falls under the legal definition of negligence, Hannah said in his dissent.
“The majority rewrites the statute and judicially creates criminal liability for manslaughter contrary to the elements of the crime set out in the statutes enacted by the General Assembly,” Hannah wrote.
