An eight-time parole absconder who sparked a legislative overhaul of Arkansas' early release programs for convicts goes on trial today in the killing of an 18-year-old Fayetteville man two years ago.
Forrest Abrams was found shot dead on a Little Rock street in May 2013, and the man police accused of killing him, Darrell Napoleon Dennis, had only been released from jail about a day-and-a-half before the slaying.
Despite Dennis' status, he'd never had a parole-revocation hearing, even though he had 10 felony drug charges, representing two arrests, during the 41/2 years between his December 2008 parole on a 1990 aggravated robbery conviction and his May 2013 arrest on capital murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping.
Today begins the trial in which an eight-woman and four-man jury will decide whether police and prosecutors have the right man.
Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for the 49-year-old Dennis. He is accused of abducting Abrams and Abrams' acquaintance, 24-year-old Tyler Hodges, at gunpoint from a convenience store and then either shooting Abrams himself or participating in the killing with two accomplices.
Before the killing, police say, Dennis and the two unknown people also drove Abrams and Hodges to at least one bank to withdraw money with Abrams' ATM card.
Dennis has vociferously maintained his innocence since his arrest 12 days after the slaying.
He's accused each of his lawyers -- Dennis is on his fourth -- of conspiring against him and even at times collaborating with prosecutors to get him convicted.
In his own motions to the court -- and an unsuccessful petition to the Arkansas Supreme Court to delay the trial -- Dennis has denounced the proceedings as a sham and described himself as a scapegoat who is being offered up in court to satisfy the politicians who took an interest in the case once he was arrested.
Dennis' arrest and the fact that his parole had never been rescinded sparked a legislative inquiry into the operations of the state's Department of Community Correction, which oversees probation and parole.
The agency's longtime director resigned and was replaced during the lawmakers' review, which led to the implementation of a new policy requiring parolees who are charged with either a new felony or multiple misdemeanors to remain jailed until they face a parole review. The department also rescinded a longtime policy that allowed absconders to end parole by avoiding arrest until time had run out on their sentences.
Dennis has spent most of the past 26 years in prison, although court records indicate his murder trial before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza will be only the second time he's ever faced a jury, despite 21 felony convictions, 10 of those being drug-dealing offenses. He's serving a 60-year sentence after pleading guilty to felony charges, which represent his two arrests after being paroled in December 2008. He was free on bail when Abrams was killed.
The last time Dennis appeared before a jury was March 1990 on an aggravated robbery charge for participating with four never-identified accomplices in the September 1989 knife-point holdup of a Nigerian man in a Little Rock housing project at Pine Hill Terrace and Monroe Drive. The robbers got $52 from the man.
The 23-year-old victim, Christopher Okparah of North Little Rock, abandoned his car to the thieves and ran, with Dennis chasing the man with a baseball bat while promising to help Okparah get his car back if the man would give Dennis more money, court files show. Okparah was able to flag down a passing police car and lead officers back to Dennis, court filings show.
Dennis, who had six felony convictions by then, including one for escape, was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Metro on 05/20/2015