A former lawman who said he is incapable of intercourse and has been that way for years was convicted of sex crimes on Thursday and sentenced to 15 years in prison after a two-day trial.
A Pulaski County jury deliberated about 75 minutes to deliver its guilty verdict against James Nelson England, a former Perry County sheriff's deputy, ex-Bull Shoals police chief, and one-time bodyguard for the late Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller.
Circuit Judge Herb Wright imposed the sentence recommended by the eight women and four men who spent about 25 minutes considering punishment for England, who is also a former Perryville city marshal and a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences police officer.
England, 46, faced a potential life sentence on the rape and incest charges. He'll have to serve 10 1/2 years before qualifying for parole.
Accused of regularly molesting two sisters since they were teenagers, England, who testified on Thursday, vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
"I have not touched them girls in any form or fashion ... anytime anywhere," he said, saying he was "very shocked, very hurt" by the accusations.
The women are 23 and 30 now. The younger woman testified she was 17 when England began abusing her, while her older sister said the abuse began when she was 16 and went on for 10 years. The criminal acts were alleged to have occurred between January 2009 and August 2011 but didn't include accusations by the women that occurred outside the statute of limitations.
England testified that he has only been able to achieve arousal once in the past six years, and that it was earlier this year and he needed an injection into his genitals to accomplish it. He acknowledged being diagnosed with genital herpes and told jurors he'd suffered from erectile dysfunction since at least 2003.
Medical records that showed he had complained about painful sex in 2011 were wrong, England told jurors, saying he had regularly suffered pain for years when he could become aroused before the effects of having his cancerous prostate gland surgically removed in 2010 ended his ability to get an erection.
England, who spent about 90 minutes on the stand, said his accusers, including the law officers who investigated their complaints, were all out to get him. The older sister owed him money, England told jurors, and she and her sister had also sided with his wife when she left him, leading to his divorce earlier this year.
Mark Brice, the State Police investigator, was mad at him because he refused to haul Brice's cattle for free, England said, while the sheriff's investigator, Ray Byrd, still held a grudge against him for challenging Byrd for Perry County sheriff in 2002.
In closing arguments Thursday, deputy prosecutor Leigh Patterson showed jurors a photograph of England with a noose around his neck. The picture came from the cell phone of the oldest sister who testified that England had texted it to her with a message that he was going to kill himself because he could not live without her.
"This is James England," Patterson said. "We're not dealing with the guy [in the courtroom] with a silver belt buckle, starched shirt and starched jeans. We're dealing with this dude [in the photo] who would string a cord around his neck and pretend to hang himself at a deer stand. He's a manipulator."
She praised the courage of his accusers, telling jurors not to mistake their composure Tuesday on the witness stand as a sign they were not telling the truth about what England had done to them. Patterson asked the jurors to recognize the calm demeanor of the women as proof that they have now taken control of their lives after suffering years of unrelenting sexual abuse by the defendant.
"They have coped with it all of these years. Why would they give him the satisfaction of seeing them break?" she said. "In order to seek justice, they have had to be victimized again. They've told their story for the last time. They can move on with their lives. They don't have to be those girls [who were victimized] again."
Defense attorney Sara Merritt repeatedly referenced the testimony of England's doctor in her closing remarks while pointing out that prosecutors had relied on a "jailhouse snitch" to bolster their case against the defendant.
Prosecutors had made her client out to be the "porn star of Perry County," Merritt told jurors, but he is not physically capable of molesting both the women on an almost daily basis, while still maintaining a sexual relationship with his wife.
Urologist Kevin Claybrook testified that a man with England's deficiencies would be "highly unlikely" to be able to have sex as many times as he was accused of, Merritt said, pointing to the testimony of the younger woman, who estimated he had molested her 400 times over a 531-day period that ended when he had his prostate removed.
"He'd have to be able to perform 12 hours a day," she said. "It's highly unlikely any of these things happened. Common sense and math and Doctor Claybrook will tell you it's highly unlikely James England did the things he's accused of."
Metro on 05/08/2015