Boxer Taylor allowed to leave treatment for church

Boxer Jermain Taylor leaves Pulaski County Circuit Court Monday.
Boxer Jermain Taylor leaves Pulaski County Circuit Court Monday.

Boxer Jermain Taylor will be allowed out of a treatment program he is undergoing to go to church each week, a judge ruled Monday.

Taylor was back in Pulaski County Circuit Court for a hearing in a case in which he's accused of shooting his cousin during an altercation at his home last August. It's one of two criminal cases proceeding against Taylor, who is also accused of opening fire and threatening a family after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Little Rock in January.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson earlier this year granted a request from Taylor's attorneys that he undergo a full mental and physical evaluation at a lockdown facility. Last month, the judge agreed to transfer Taylor from the hospital to a substance-abuse program run by the Recovery Centers of Arkansas.

Johnson at a later hearing in March denied a request that Taylor be allowed out once a week to handle his affairs. But on Monday, the judge granted a request that Taylor be allowed out to attend a weekly church service from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Defense attorney Christian Alexander noted that part of the program Taylor is in includes beginning to attend church service. And, he said, Taylor would attend with Muskie Harris, who works for the recovery center.

Taylor didn't speak during the brief hearing.

Prosecutors objected to any release from the treatment facility, but Johnson ultimately allowed it on the condition that Taylor attend with Harris, not sit with anyone else and not go to lunch afterward.

Taylor is set to go to trial in the case involving his cousin on June 23. The second case is set for trial on Sept. 15.

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