Prosecutors said they still believe that Josh Hastings committed manslaughter when the former Little Rock police officer killed a teenage car-burglary suspect, even as they dropped the charge Monday.
Chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson and Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley told a Pulaski County circuit judge that they don’t think they can persuade a jury to convict Hastings after jurors in two trials could not agree on a verdict.
Johnson said that regardless of their beliefs, prosecutors cannot ethically continue to pursue a case if they don’t think a jury will find the 29-year-old Benton man guilty. Hastings was scheduled to stand trial next month. The Class C felony charge carried a 10-year maximum sentence.
“We have no good-faith basis to believe we can ever convict this man,” Johnson told Judge Wendell Griffen.
The decision comes more than 18 months after 15-year old Bobby Joe “Weedy”Moore III was shot to death behind the wheel of a car that Hastings said was about to run him over as the five-year police officer investigated a complaint about car break-ins at a west Little Rock apartment complex. Hastings was arrested a month later after the results of a police inquiry contradicted his version of events. He was subsequently fired.
Both of Hastings’ trials ended with the jury unable to reach a unanimous decision. Prosecutors employed “starkly different” strategies at each of Hastings’ trials and got “diametrically opposed” results, with the first jury favoring a conviction and the second jury preferring an acquittal, Johnson told the judge.
The prosecutor noted that Hastings didn’t even put on a defense at the second trial but 11 jurors still favored acquitting him.
The prosecutors’ rationale for their decision mirrored a defense motion that called on Griffen to dismiss the case on the grounds that forcing Hastings to stand trial a third time was unfair, comparing the decision to try Hastings again with a violation of his constitutional rights.
In the filing, defense attorney Bill James argued that prosecutors have no evidence that a third trial would be different from the first two and claimed public opinion also favored dropping the case.
After Monday’s five-minute hearing, James said dropping the charge will leave some people questioning whether his client did the right thing.
But Hastings believes he did what he had to do to save himself that night, James said.
“He did what he did to protect himself,” James said. “While he feels sympathy for Bobby Moore and his family, he feels like if it happened again, he’d have to do the same thing.”
James said Hastings’ next move is to seek reinstatement with the police force, where his father, Capt. Terry Hastings, was the department’s spokesman for about 20 years.
The senior Hastings has accompanied his son to all of his hearings while being shadowed by an undercover police detail because of threats that were made against Terry Hastings in July because of his son.
The teen’s family opposed the decision not to make Josh Hastings stand trial again and protested outside the courthouse after the hearing.
The boy’s father, Bobby Joe Moore Sr., filed a five-page motion asking the judge not to allow prosecutors to drop the case.
The elder Moore warned that letting prosecutors dismiss the case would create the “Hastings rule,” which would effectively bar prosecutors from trying any case more than twice. A criminal trial is the only opportunity to force Hastings to be held accountable for what he’s done, the filing states, noting that it’s rare for law enforcement officers to be prosecuted for using deadly force.
The filing compared the teen’s death with the slaying of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, stating the slayings demonstrate how young black men can die without their killers being held accountable.
In court, the judge said he was obligated to allow prosecutors to withdraw the case if they had a good reason. The decision to withdraw the charge gives prosecutors the option of refiling it later, the judge said.
“A nolle prosequi is not an acquittal. It doesn’t mean the state can’t retry him,” he said, using the Latin legal term for ending prosecution.
Griffen said he could not make prosecutors do more than they have done.
“I don’t try them. I just judge them,” he said.
Addressing the Moore family, Griffen called the teen’s slaying a tragedy and said they should consider that circumstances might allow prosecutors to refile the case.
“Nobody needs to walk out of here with a hard and fast idea of what the future might bring or that Bobby Moore’s death was not a tragedy,” he said.
Still unresolved is whether the judge’s sanctions against the defense, resulting in a $5,000 fine against James, will stand up on appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Griffen cited James 10 times for contempt of court in Hastings’ first trial because James broke the judge’s rules about disclosing the juvenile criminal records of the two teens who had been breaking into cars with Moore that night.
Keontay Walker, 17, and Jeremiah Johnson, 15, were in the car with Moore when he was killed and were the only witnesses to Moore’s death.
Griffen declined to let the defense divulge to jurors that the teens had marijuana and a gun in the car, which had been stolen, and that Moore was awaiting trial on charges that he had wielded a gun while leading a group of teens to carjack a woman seven weeks before he was killed.
In response to prosecutors’ arguments, the judge ruled that the the defense couldn’t prove the marijuana and gun were relevant to what happened and that there was no evidence the teens knew the car was stolen.
The judge limited disclosure of Johnson and Walker’s criminal history because juvenile records are broadly shielded from public disclosure.
But in the same manner, the judge ruled that prosecutors could not disclose Hastings’ disciplinary record with the Police Department, which includes six suspensions for insubordination, a “reckless” disregard for public safety, damaging department property, sleeping on the job and lying to other officers.
In his termination letter, Police Chief Stuart Thomas wrote that Hastings had violated department rules when he shot Moore by using deadly force in a situation in which his life was not at risk and by firing on a moving vehicle. Hastings also violated department procedure by putting himself in the path of a moving car, according to the letter.
Prosecutors said Hastings acted with criminal recklessness when he killed the teen by firing into the car without knowing who was inside.
Moore was struck by two bullets, one lodging in the right side of his chest - an injury experts said was survivable - while the other shot hit him in the left temple over his ear.
Prosecutors contended Moore had either stopped the car well ahead of Hastings and was looking over his shoulder to back away from the officer or had already put the car in reverse when he was killed. The car was in neutral when police found it.
Hastings, testifying at his first trial last year, spent 106 minutes on the stand, the only time he’s ever publicly told his story.
He testified that he fired his gun as the car moved toward him, then somehow got out of the vehicle’s way.
Hastings said the car rolled up an embankment behind him then rolled back down until it crashed into a parked car and part of the complex’s covered parking, about 195 feet away.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/08/2014