LITTLE ROCK — A Pulaski County circuit judge abruptly ended a capital-murder trial Wednesday when the lead detective revealed to jurors that the defendant had refused to speak to Little Rock police, a disclosure considered to be a breach of Joshua Rahyma Allen’s constitutional rights.
The 22-year-old Little Rock man is charged with capital murder and four counts of committing a terroristic act in the August 2009 slaying of 26-year-old Latonio Lashawn Quince, a shooting Allen’s attorney, Jim Wyatt, told jurors was self-defense after Quince had tried to rob Allen at gunpoint. Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence.
Wednesday morning, the second day of trial, Wyatt called for a mistrial when detective Dwana Phillips, describing how Allen surrendered to authorities two days after the slaying, testified that Allen had declined to speak with arresting officers.
Deputy prosecutor Leigh Patterson objected to the request to end the trial, saying that with Allen expected to take the stand to testify, the judge could just remind jurors that defendants have an absolute right not to answer police questions. Wyatt said that admonishment would not be good enough.
“That doesn’t cure the mistake,” he told the judge after the seven women and five men of the jury had been excused.
Judge Herb Wright said he was duty-bound to declare a mistrial and end the proceedings to protect Allen’s rights to a fair trial, regardless of whether Wyatt requested a mistrial. The judge scolded Phillips for making the disclosure.
“You’ve been a detective long enough to know better than to lay that out before the jury,” Wright said. “I’m disappointed.”
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits criminal suspects from being forced to incriminate themselves. The Miranda warning that officers give suspects informs them, among other things, that they are entitled to remain silent.
Fifth Amendment protections come into play in court by prohibiting defendants from being put into a situation in which their refusal to testify is called to the attention of jurors.
Wyatt told the judge he didn’t understand how Phillips could reveal Allen’s decision to invoke his rights.
“I can’t figure out how the question [Patterson] asked ended up with the answer that was given,” the attorney said.
Over the course of the trial, jurors heard testimony about how Quince died from a bullet that pierced his liver and heart after Allen fired five shots into the car Quince was riding in. The driver, 25-year-old Antonio “T.O.” Johnson, drove to a nearby hospital seeking help for his wounded friend.
But Southwest Hospital, along with its emergency room, had been closed for more than a year. Allegiance Specialty Hospital of Little Rock, a long-term treatment facility that uses some of the former hospital’s facilities, didn’t have trauma capabilities, prosecutors said.
Tammy Pace, the hospital’s chief executive officer and a former trauma nurse, testified how she tried to save Quince’s life, although she could tell from his breathing that he was dying. Pace and a co-worker were leaving work for the day when they heard the gunfire and saw the men drive into the parking lot as a white Ford Crown Victoria, Allen’s car, raced off.
“While there was a stranger trying to save Latonio Quince’s life ... [Allen] was calling 911 to report his car stolen,” Patterson told jurors in her opening statement.
She said Allen twice reported his car stolen from different locations, with the vehicle eventually being discovered on fire in Saline County, just over the Pulaski County line. When he was arrested, Allen had burns on his arms and legs that doctors said were 48 hours old and apparently caused by a flash fire started with accelerants, Patterson said. Wyatt called Allen’s decision to set the car on fire “stupid.”
“I’m not going to deny to you what happened to Josh’s car,” Wyatt told jurors. “In a period of extreme emotion, irrational thinking ... panic, Josh went and burned his car. He burns himself in the process.”
But Quince and Johnson were trying to rob his client after Allen tried to back out of selling marijuana to Johnson, Wyatt said. Allen was trying to elude the men, but they gave pursuit, with Quince pulling a gun once Johnson drove his car alongside Allen’s, Wyatt said.
“There was a gun pointed at him and [Quince] says give it up and he hears a click,” Wyatt said in his opening statement. “When he sees that and hears that ... he fires, not aiming, but trying to get away. I think you’ll agree with me that Josh was justified in defending himself.”
All five shots that Allen fired were below the window line of the passenger door, evidence that Allen wasn’t shooting to kill, Wyatt said. Allen and Johnson had known each other for several years. Allen had been close friends with Johnson’s younger brother, 17-year-old Aaron Deshawn Johnson, who was murdered in 2005 in front of his Little Rock home.
Antonio Johnson denied making any robbery attack against Allen, testifying that he didn’t know why Allen would shoot into his car. Prosecutors pointed out that there was no evidence that Quince or Johnson were armed, and that all of the bullet evidence at the scene came from Allen’s gun.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/31/2011