New-trial bid denied in '76 hammer killing

Judge: ‘Actual innocence’ bar unmet

A Batesville man has lost his bid to try to prove that a hammer blow he inflicted during a 1976 burglary didn't kill a woman for whose death he is serving a life sentence.

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In a 47-page ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller, who heard dueling viewpoints from pathologists in September, said there wasn't enough new evidence presented to propel Keith Allen Deaton over the U.S. Supreme Court's high bar for being heard on a second habeas petition.

In 1995, the high court carved out an exception to a prohibition against repeat new-trial requests from prisoners, for those who could prove they may be "actually innocent." To qualify for the exception, a prisoner "must show that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in light of the new evidence."

Miller said that required him to determine that no reasonable juror would find Deaton guilty if the juror had all the information now available.

But he said the evidence presented in September demonstrates that "it would be reasonable for a juror to find Deaton guilty of the murder ... and it would be reasonable for a juror to find Deaton not guilty of the same crime," which is not enough to permit Deaton to present the evidence at a new trial in the hopes that another jury would acquit him.

Deaton, 57, is serving the 39th year of his life sentence in the Arkansas Department of Correction. His sister, Cynthia Houlroyd of New Jersey, said Thursday that she isn't going to give up, and will appeal Miller's ruling to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.

For Gwen Prince of Searcy, whose mother was the victim, "We're just really grateful and relieved for the outcome. Hopefully, " she said Friday, "this will be the end of it so we can heal and have peace."

Prince, who testified at the September hearing, was 9 years old when Deaton, a neighbor who was 18 years old, broke into the family's Batesville home early Sept. 24, 1976, while Linda Joan Reed and her four children were asleep. Reed, 26, was struck in the head with a hammer when she rose from sleeping with her infant son. She told Gwen to call the police.

Reed went to the emergency room at White River Medical Center in Batesville, where she was diagnosed with a skull fracture.

Reed was hospitalized until Oct. 7, 1976, and then was readmitted nearly two weeks later, on Oct. 20, complaining of a headache and nausea. She suffered respiratory arrest that night and the next day was transferred to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, where she died at 8:30 p.m on Oct. 21, 1976.

An autopsy performed Oct. 22, 1976, cited "blunt force injury" to her head, as well as brain swelling, scar tissue and pneumonia, concluding that "the chain of events leading to the death ... was initiated by the blow to the head."

Deaton was charged with capital murder and burglary, and he pleaded guilty to both on Jan. 3, 1977, believing the hammer blow led to Reed's death. But over the years, as Houlroyd began learning how to interpret medical records and consulted pathologists, she persuaded the original pathologist, Dr. Rodney Carlton, to write letters to two Arkansas governors, Jim Guy Tucker and Mike Huckabee, supporting Deaton's petitions for clemency.

In a 1995 letter to Tucker, Carlton said that in reviewing medical records that weren't available to him at the time of the autopsy, he came to believe that Reed died from an infection that led to pneumonia, and that a possible toxic dose of narcotics also may have contributed to her death.

His 2006 letter to Huckabee said the infection that caused Reed's death "cannot be associated in any way with the head injury" and that there "is no perceivable way to link the pneumonia ... as being caused or contributed to by the head injury." Carlton is now deceased.

A federal petition Deaton filed in 2008, seeking a chance to present the new information, was dismissed on June 7, 2010, because the statute of limitations had expired. But the case was reopened on Nov. 2, 2010, to determine whether the statute of limitations should have been "tolled" because of circumstances beyond Deaton's control.

Miller's dismissal of that effort, after a two-day hearing in 2012, was appealed to the 8th Circuit, which in response directed Miller to hold the hearing that lasted four days in September, to determine whether Deaton met the stringent requirements of the "actual innocence" standard -- leading to Miller's latest ruling, filed Tuesday.

Miller's ruling cited the testimony of an independent forensic pathologist from New Jersey, Hisham Hashish, who said Reed died from respiratory arrest rather than blunt trauma to the head, and that the respiratory arrest was caused by the combination of pneumonia, a brain abscess caused by an infection and drugs administered in the hospital. None, he said, are related to the hammer blow.

Miller's ruling also cited the testimony of Dr. Charles Kokes, Arkansas' chief medical examiner, who insisted that the head trauma initiated a series of medical events that resulted in Reed's death 27 days later.

In Kokes' words, "In my opinion, the blunt force trauma to the head, in turn, caused a sterile abscess of the right cerebral hemisphere, which, in turn, caused a respiratory arrest, which, in turn, led to the immediate cause of death, which is hypoxic encephalopathy. That's fancy medical talk for brain death due to lack of oxygen."

Miller cited both pathologists' testimony extensively, as well as key points on which they disagreed. Miller also cited Prince's testimony that after the attack, Reed "just wasn't herself anymore" and complained of headaches that continued until the evening of her death. He said, "Ms. Prince testified that in her opinion, her mother never recovered."

"This case poses a somewhat unique set of facts because it involves a petitioner who pleaded guilty to a murder that he was firmly convinced he committed, only to later obtain information that led him to believe he did not cause the victim's death," the order said. "What makes this case even more unique is that the petitioner now has letters from the medical examiner, who initially determined the petitioner committed murder, stating he has reconsidered his findings and believes the petitioner's actions did not cause the victim's death."

Miller said that Carlton and Hashish both seemed credible, but, "Dr. Kokes, who was very credible, refuted much of Dr. Hashish's testimony. In doing so, Dr. Kokes was clear that the respiratory arrest which ultimately caused Reed's death was the result of Deaton's hammer blow to her head."

While a reasonable juror could be convinced by the testimony of Carlton and Hashish, a reasonable juror also "could definitely be convinced by the testimony of Dr. Kokes and Prince, and all of the evidence showing that every one of Reed's medical complaints leading up to her death was exhibited only after Deaton hit her in the head with a hammer," Miller wrote.

Based on the testimony he heard and the other evidence he reviewed, Miller said, "I am convinced that it is more likely than not that there are reasonable jurors who would find Keith Allen Deaton guilty of the murder of Linda Reed. Accordingly, Deaton has not met the actual innocence standard."

Metro on 02/14/2016

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