Judge innocent in toddler son's death in hot car

HOT SPRINGS -- A jury acquitted Garland County Circuit Judge Wade Naramore of negligent homicide Friday night in the death of his 17-month-old son, Thomas.

The courtroom broke into loud cheers and sobbing when the verdict was announced at 7:30 p.m. Ashley Naramore dodged relatives and friends who swarmed her, ducking under outstretched arms as she made her way to the defense table and into her husband's grasp.

The two clung tightly to each other, sobbing loudly.

[FULL TRIAL COVERAGE: Click here for stories from all five days of Naramore's trial.]

Ashley Naramore's brother, Spencer Wright, crumpled onto the front-row bench and doubled over, wailing loudly as he covered his face with his hands.

Family and friends hugged one another, tears streaming as they followed Wade and Ashley Naramore down the winding stairs to the front door of the courtroom.

"This year has been an unimaginable hell," Erin Finzer, sister of Ashley Naramore, said after the trial. "Now we can finally start to heal."

Defense attorney Erin Cassinelli said in an interview afterward that charges never should have been filed against Wade Naramore.

"I'm just glad that this proceeding is over. It was cruel," she said. "I have serious concerns about the moral compass that [the] prosecutor's office, from the top down, operates under. From the beginning of that investigation all the way through that closing argument, it was wholly inappropriate and, in my opinion, unethical."

Deputy prosecutor Thomas Young said he was not surprised by the innocent verdict because the sympathy for Wade Naramore was high even before the trial began.

"These people are humans," Young said. "The point, though, was not about passions and sympathy, but about accountability. I respect the jury's decision. I expected the jury to be hung given the amount of passion the jurors had shown. In the end, what matters is that he got a fair trial."

The 12 jurors took less than two hours to reach the unanimous verdict.

Naramore was charged in the death of Thomas, who died July 24, 2015, after being left in a hot car for nearly seven hours.

About 6:30 p.m. Friday, the jury returned to the courtroom and the foreman told special Circuit Judge John Langston that jurors were split 10 to 2. Langston sent the jurors back for further deliberation. They returned about five minutes later saying an unanimous verdict was not possible.

Naramore gasped and cried as he laid his head on the table.

Langston told jurors that another more intelligent, more competent jury could not be found if the case were to be tried again. He asked jurors to spend a "reasonable" amount of time going over the testimony and evidence. The jury was sent back to the deliberation room at 6:48 p.m., then returned with the innocent verdict at 7:30.

Earlier in the afternoon Wade Naramore took the stand and spoke about the day Thomas died. His eyes were swollen and his face was red. He sobbed intermittently through the testimony and at one point pressed his hand to his chest, took a deep breath and exhaled.

Naramore talked about the new car the family bought specifically to make Thomas' ride more comfortable. His previous 2007 Honda Accord had more than 100,000 miles on it and the back seat was too small to accommodate the larger car seat to which Thomas just recently converted.

The new car, a Toyota Avalon, had a large backup camera, hands-free communications capabilities and rear air-conditioning to keep Thomas cool. Naramore said he and his wife had the back windows of the new car custom tinted darker to shade Thomas from the sun.

The car "was supposed to be one of the safest on the market," Wade Naramore said.

After his son's death, Wade Naramore said he could not even look at the car. Family members took the car out of town and put it in a residential garage.

At some point in the past year, Wade Naramore said he removed the personal belongings from the vehicle and "took it straight to the dealership" to sell.

Wade Naramore said he had been in therapy several days a week after Thomas' death and that his therapist recently reduced the visits to once a month. He said he would seek more frequent visits after the trial.

"It has been extremely traumatic having to remember that day," Wade Naramore said.

When defense attorney Patrick Benca handed Wade Naramore a picture of himself with Thomas at a swimming pool, Naramore's face scrunched up and he began to wail.

"That's my baby. My baby boy," he said.

On cross examination, deputy prosecutor Thomas Young asked Naramore what his most important job was July 24, 2015.

"My family," Naramore said.

Young asked the question again.

"My family," Naramore said.

Young pressed further, asking about Naramore's responsibility to his son.

"And you failed him, didn't you?" Young asked.

"I lost awareness my son was in the car," Naramore said. "It's the most horrible thing I can ever imagine happening."

Earlier in the day, Finzer, the sister-in-law, told jurors she had forgotten her daughter in her car on two occasions.

Finzer, a Spanish professor and department chairman at UALR, said she was sleep-deprived from working day and night to achieve tenure.

She drove past her nearly 2-year-old daughter's day care and pulled up in the parking lot at the college. It wasn't until Finzer opened the back door to pick up her bag that she saw her daughter still strapped in the car seat.

The same thing happened about six weeks later.

"I just said, 'God, Erin, you've got to get it together,'" Finzer said.

Finzer also testified that in the days after Thomas Naramore's death, Wade Naramore would wake up from sedation wailing as he had flashbacks.

She said he was screaming "Why God, why?" and "How did this happen?"

Two grief counselors were sent from UALR to assist the family during the days after Thomas' death.

Cassinelli said Friday after the verdict that Wade and Ashley Naramore are going to spend time with family and "finally begin to heal."

"Now they can remember their son, and his legacy will not be tainted by the ridiculous cruelness of this proceeding," Cassinelli said.

Emily White, deputy director of the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, was seated in the back row of the courtroom each day of the trial. Naramore was suspended from the bench with pay earlier this year after charges were filed against him.

White said Wade Naramore will remain suspended until the completion of an investigation by the commission.

If Naramore had been convicted of negligent homicide, a Class A misdemeanor, he would have faced up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

Metro on 08/20/2016