The murder trial of a Hensley man accused of fatally stabbing a Bauxite musician outside a nightclub ended in mistrial Thursday when the judge learned a defense attorney was working under a suspended law license.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright was notified by authorities who were responding to a routine inquiry by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the standing of Benton attorney David M. Littlejohn, co-counsel representing Brian Elam Sims of Hensley, 29.
Littlejohn’s license had been suspended in December 2011 for failing to complete continuing-education requirements. Littlejohn had met those requirements but had not paid a $250 reinstatement fee. Littlejohn, a lawyer for about 10 years, said it was an oversight,and court records show he had paid the fee and had his license reinstated by mid-afternoon.
The judge declared a mistrial after prosecutors had rested their case against Sims, who is charged with first-degree murder over the October 2011 death of 38-yearold Robert Aaron Cauley. He has claimed self-defense and told sheriff’s investigators he used his knife to fight off a much-larger assailant who took him by surprise.
Prosecutors say Cauley was attacked from behind without provocation after helping Sims’ drunken wifeget into her car. He was stabbed seven times in the back, side and chest with Sims’ four-inch folding knife and died a week later. Cauley was a regular at the club, where he sometimes performed.
According to testimony,he and a fellow guitar player had stopped at the Rock City Lounge on Arch Street to take bartender Margie “Tina” Powell to breakfast after the club’s 2 a.m. closing.
Sims, who faces a potential life sentence, is also charged with second-degree battery and aggravated assault over accusations he slashed the hand of a man who tried to come to Cauley’s rescue and threatened his wife’s sister with a handgun during a late-night September 2011 encounter at the Arch Street club outside the Little Rock city limits.
Wright set a new trial date for June and also told the defendant that his attorneys had displayed poor knowledge about the rules of evidence and criminal procedure. Lead defense counsel David Horn said he wasn’t sure what the judge was talking about. The attorneys said they were pleased with how the case had progressed.
The judge also cautioned Sims that he could be jailed until his trial if there’s any evidence he’s contacted the victim’s family and supporters. Deputy prosecutor Jill Kamps complained that Sims had been seen making vulgar gestures and smirking at them during a break. Sims is free on $240,000 bond.
Kamps also said she was looking into a complaint that Sims’ wife, 30-year-old Charleena Renee “Nina” Sims, had gotten into an “altercation” in the courthouse with her sister, Hannah Monroe of Bryant, whom the Simses are accused of threatening with a gun the night Cauley was stabbed.
Kamps told the judge she would be considering filing a motion to have Nina Sims’ $20,000 bond revoked.
Nina Sims was to have testified on her husband’s behalf, but the trial ended before she could be called.
She is charged with felony aggravated assault and misdemeanor drunken-driving and drug charges stemming from the couple’s arrest the night Cauley was stabbed.
In a court appearance Thursday, her attorney, Bobby Digby, told the judge that Nina Sims was acting against his advice and that he recommended she exercise her right not to incriminate herself.
The judge told her that anything she said in court could be used against her and that she faced up to six years in prison. She is not accused of participating in Cauley’s slaying and will be tried separately.
Her sister spent 20 minutes on the witness stand Wednesday, testifying for the prosecution. Monroe told jurors that she had seen both her brother-in-law and sister brandishing a gun after Cauley had been knifed.
“They both had a gun at some point,” she said, testifying that the weapon was pointed at her.
She and her boyfriend were regulars at the club, north of Base Line Road, she said. She had invited the Simses to the club, which they’d not attended before, to help celebrate her boyfriend’s birthday, she said.
Brian Sims was showing off his folding knife to the others in their party, but not in a threatening manner, she said.
“He was very drunk,” she testified. “He was playing around, showing me the knife. I didn’t feel threatened.”
But her sister was “outof-control drunk” when the bar closed at 2 a.m., she said. They had been drinking bloody marys and smoking marijuana together, Monroe said.
Cauley helped her carry her sister to Sims’ car, Monroe testified. Cauley held Nina Sims’ torso while she held her sister’s feet, she said.
As Cauley put Nina Sims into the backseat of the car, “I heard her say he grabbed her boob,” Monroe said. “She might’ve been too drunk to realize he was carrying her,” adding that she did not see him touch her sister like that.
Monroe was walking away from the vehicle when she looked back and saw Cauley and Brian Sims “wrestling with each other,” she testified. She could see another club patron, Rodney Brazeal, trying to take a knife away from Sims, she said.
Her brother-in-law then got into his car and that’s when the gun came out, she said. The couple then drove away, Monroe said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/29/2013