A former juror whose sudden withdrawal from an armed robbery trial last month caused a mistrial was sentenced to 10 days in jail on Monday by a Pulaski County Circuit judge who said her excuses were self-serving and unbelievable.
Helen Renee Lewis-Holmes said she had to quit the jury because her son had been hurt in a similar robbery and she realized she could not fairly consider the evidence.
Judge Herb Wright told the woman that she had cost taxpayers at least $2,000 in court expenses; wasted two days of the other jurors’ time; inconvenienced prosecutors; put the defendant, facing a potential life sentence, through the stress of having to go through two trials; and caused the man to run out of money to pay his lawyer, producing more public expense because public defenders now have to take up his case.
After a 25-minute hearing, which featured 16 minutes of testimony from the 57-year-old Little Rock woman, Wright found her in contempt of court, ordered her jailed and fined her $500. She can appeal.
“I don’t think Ms. Lewis-Holmes is being quite honest in her testimony,” Wright said.
The woman should have disclosed during the jury-selection process that her son had been shot during a June 2011 holdup at the Little Rock restaurant where he worked, Wright said.
The judge said he had told potential jurors during the orientation meeting when they began their service that if they were called to duty, they should be prepared to disclose any encounters they, their friends, family or co-workers had with law enforcement.
She should have spoken up during jury selection, Wright said. If she had disclosed her true feelings earlier in the trial, the proceeding could have still gone forward, using an alternate juror, the judge said. Lewis-Holmes should have disclosed her feelings when they came to her, the judge said.
Lewis-Holmes told the judge that she realized after the state’s second witness - the victim - had testified that she could not impartially consider the evidence because she began to identify the man, who had been shot twice in the leg during a November holdup outside a Little Rock Arvest Bank branch, with her son, Antonio Mitchell.
“It was so similar to what happened to my son,” the woman said. “He was walking exactly like Antonio, in pain, and my heart just got on the floor and I thought, ‘I shouldn’t be here.’”
Lewis-Holmes’ attorney, Ernest Sanders, argued that she was innocent of deliberate wrongdoing but had misunderstood questions by the prosecution and defense that had not been sufficiently clear. Lewis-Holmes said she thought they only wanted to know about her experiences with police, and she’s never been a victim of a crime.
Deputy prosecutor Barbara Mariani told the judge she had explicitly questioned jurors about whether they had relatives who had been crime victims in an effort to select an impartial panel to consider the case.
Lewis-Holmes was seated to hear the aggravated robbery case against 23-year-old Milton Xavier Parker, but she didn’t immediately return to continue jury deliberations after an overnight break.
When she did return to court, she was an hour late with a typed-out apology. She said her consternation was inflamed because she mistakenly believed her son was in court on his shooting case. Mitchell is suing the building owners and managers where he worked, claiming they ignored his entreaties to improve safety.
“It just came to me [that morning] I had to do something,” the woman told the judge. “My intent was never to deceive anybody about anything.”
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 10/29/2013