Daughter asks board to spare mother's killer

The daughter of a 1993 murder victim told the Arkansas Parole Board on Thursday afternoon that she wanted the life of her mother's killer spared.

"I don't want Stacey Johnson put to death," Ashley Heath told the board during a clemency application hearing for Johnson.

Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for killing Carol Heath in her De Queen apartment late on April 1, 1993, or early the next morning.

Ashley Heath was 6 and at home at the time of the murder, along with her 2-year-old brother, Jonathan.

A relative discovered Carol Heath's body on the living room floor on the morning of April 2, 1993. Carol Heath had been beaten and strangled, and her throat was slit.

On Thursday, Ashley Heath told the board that she was "pro-life" and had forgiven Johnson.

She said there was "no justice in the death penalty" and asked the board to give Johnson life in prison without parole.

Ashley Heath, who entered the board's downtown Little Rock hearing wearing sunglasses, also showed the board a photograph of her mother before delivering her statement.

"My mother's life was cut way too short," she added. "She had so many dreams and opportunities before her."

But Jonathan Palmer told the Parole Board that he "completely" disagreed with his sister about prolonging Johnson's life.

Palmer said he couldn't ever truly be at peace with the crime if Johnson continued to "have the luxury of life itself."

"My mother's not here," he told the board. "She doesn't have any access to that. She never will."

But Palmer later added that if Johnson was granted life without parole that would likely satisfy him -- as long as the case was "over and done with, and I don't have to worry about waiting for the next decision to be made or the next hearing to be scheduled."

Carol Heath's sister, Melissa Cassady, told the board that their father died with a broken heart because he didn't see justice served in his daughter's murder and that their "mother hasn't been the same since her eldest daughter was taken from us."

In the 22 years since Carol Heath's murder, Cassady said she hasn't been "able to be completely happy."

"Stacey Johnson does not deserve to keep on living," she told the board. "My sister is gone forever because of his actions on that fateful night. I'm asking you to please, please do not grant Stacey Johnson clemency. Let the execution go on as scheduled."

The Parole Board will make a recommendation on Johnson's request to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who has the final say on whether to grant Johnson clemency.

The board's nonbinding recommendation to the governor will be released Tuesday.

Johnson is one of eight Arkansas death-row inmates whose executions have been stayed by a circuit court ruling.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen ruled Oct. 9 that the state can't execute anyone until an inmate lawsuit challenging the secrecy over lethal-injection drugs is decided at trial. The lawsuit was filed by nine inmates in June.

The first executions had been set for Oct. 21.

The state on Tuesday appealed Griffen's ruling to the Arkansas Supreme Court. The notice came less than two hours after Griffen denied a request from the state to lift the stay on the inmate executions.

Johnson's defense attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig -- who also represents the other death-row inmates in their lawsuit -- said Thursday after the hearing that he and Johnson were "obviously gratified" that Ashley Heath asked for Johnson's life to be saved.

"Hopefully, the board will consider that in their recommendation, and the governor will consider that in his decision," he said.

Rosenzweig told the board during a Thursday morning hearing at the Varner Supermax Unit in Lincoln County that Johnson may be innocent and his sentence should be commuted to life without parole.

"My message basically was that his trial was so flawed that it would be improper and, in fact, immoral to execute him based on such a flawed trial," he said.

Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994, but the conviction was overturned when the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that a police officer should not have been allowed to testify about Ashley Heath picking Johnson out of a photographic lineup.

Ashley Heath told investigators in 1993 that Johnson had been to the apartment a couple times before the day of the killing and was angry because her mother had been seeing someone else.

At a second trial in 1996, Johnson was again convicted and sentenced to death.

Rosenzweig said Thursday that Ashley Heath was found incompetent to testify during the first trial. Her statements were read to the jury.

For the second trial, he said Ashley Heath was found competent, but Johnson was denied access to her competency records.

During Thursday afternoon's hearing, Assistant Attorney General Pamela Rumpz told the Parole Board that Johnson had been found guilty of Carol Heath's murder by "24 people."

"He has been sentenced to death by 24 people because he had two different jury trials with 12 members in each jury," she said.

Rumpz said Ashley Heath was found incompetent during the first trial because the trial judge had no other choice.

"She had witnessed her mother's murder, and she would not enter the courtroom to testify at the competency hearing to determine whether she was competent to testify or not," Rumpz said.

In March 2010, the Parole Board recommended to then-Gov. Mike Beebe that he reject a request for clemency by Johnson. Ashley Heath recommended against granting clemency for Johnson at that time.

The attorney general's office and the prosecuting attorney noted then that physical evidence linked Johnson to the killing, including DNA from hair found on Carol Heath's body and from saliva on a cigarette butt in the pocket of a shirt found at a roadside park that was covered with Heath's blood.

Johnson was then set to die by lethal injection on May 4, 2010.

The Arkansas Supreme Court on April 29, 2010, granted a stay of execution to Johnson.

Information for this article was contributed by The Associate Press.

State Desk on 10/16/2015