LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a murder conviction in the death of a man beaten with a baseball bat in Faulkner County.
Justin Nicholson of Conway was convicted in Faulkner County Circuit Court in 2009 of second-degree murder in the 2007 death of Justin “Hopper” McKinney of Pocahontas.
According to the court’s opinion, McKinney often visited a house where Nicholson and others lived and socialized.
“Hopper’s irritating and bizarre behavior, which included drinking his own urine in exchange for a cigarette, became too much for Nicholson and some of the other regulars,” the opinion said. “When Hopper began threatening people, Nicholson kicked him out of the house and told him not tocome back.”
But McKinney kept coming back, and he and Nicholson later had an argument at a store. Nicholson threatened to hogtie McKinney, put him in a trunk and kill him.
“Hopper encouraged Nicholson to do it and then voluntarily got into the trunkof Nicholson’s wife’s car,” the opinion said.
Later, with McKinney still in the trunk, Nicholson grabbed a baseball bat. Nicholson and others smoked marijuana while taking the car to a remote area. Nicholson and another man beat McKinney with the bat and left him on the ground. They then drove to Toad Suck and discarded the bat, according to the court record.
One of the people with Nicholson later told a relative what had happened. Police afterward found McKinney’s body.
Nicholson was charged with first-degree murder, but convicted of second-degree murder and received a sentence of 30 years in prison.
Nicholson appealed, contending there was too little evidence to support the conviction.
Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Abramson rejected that argument, saying Nicholson’s lawyer during the trial only addressed the lack of evidence toward first-degree murder, not second-degree murder.
Judges Robert Gladwin and David Glover agreed.
At the Court of Appeals, the case is CACR10-20, Justin A. Nicholson v. State.
Arkansas, Pages 18 on 09/26/2010