The Arkansas Court of Appeals sided with a convicted rapist who claimed his trial should have been halted once it was disclosed that investigators had sought an alternative suspect in the assault.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel reversed and remanded a March 2015 ruling by Washington County Circuit Judge Mark Lindsay that refused to grant a mistrial, or a continuance, in the trial of Cesar Figueroa, who was accused of attacking and raping a University of Arkansas student on the Fayetteville campus in 2012.
Figueroa's attorney, Autumn Tolbert, had asked Lindsay for a mistrial or, alternatively, a continuance after a police captain testified that investigators had initially sought a different suspect before finding traces of DNA on the victim's shirt that matched Figueroa's.
Neither the county prosecutor nor Figueroa's defense counsel had been told that information, which Tolbert argued could prove exculpatory for her client.
On Wednesday, the Court of Appeals agreed that Lindsay should have granted a continuance, a ruling that will likely result in retrial at the circuit court, said Robby Golden, Figueroa's appellate attorney.
After a student at the University of Arkansas returned home after a Razorback football game, she noticed that two men were behind her, and when she reached an unlit campus parking lot, at least one man jumped her and threatened to kill her. Then one of the men raped her.
The victim did not get a look at her attacker's face, and investigators said they were unable to obtain any semen samples.
They used a "tape lift," which can identify DNA from skin cells, sweat or mucus, from the woman's shirt and found samples from multiple individuals.
Eventually, a DNA sample matched up with Figueroa's. During an interview, he admitted to drinking in Fayetteville one night and following a girl, then attacking her, but denied ever raping her.
Attorneys for Figueroa suggested that the victim was out that night and that Figueroa's physical contact with her was incidental.
Figueroa, who is now 25 years old, later said he lied to University of Arkansas Police Capt. Greg Foster about those details and that he was on drugs during questioning and was trying to tell Foster what he wanted to hear so he could be released sooner.
It wasn't until Foster began testifying at Figueroa's trial that those involved learned that before looking at Figueroa, police were given a tip that a man who lived close to a trail that ran past the parking lot may have committed the crime.
Figueroa's attorney then learned that the other suspect in question had a history of violent behavior and that a confidential informant had told UAPD that the suspect said he had raped a woman on the trail.
When asked about Wednesday's ruling, Foster replied by email: "As part of any investigation, we follow up on any information on possible suspects in an attempt to prove or disprove their involvement in the case," Foster wrote. "In this instance we were attempting to eliminate one suspect when we were provided information on a suspect identified through Crime Lab analysis of DNA evidence. We pursued the suspect whom the DNA profile matched and stopped working on any other suspect."
Tolbert's request for a mistrial, or a continuance, was denied on the grounds that the revelation of a possible suspect was not exculpatory.
In Wednesday's opinion, penned by Judge Rita Gruber, the court disagreed.
"[Figueroa] asserts that prejudice resulted because he was not given the information in time to make use of it before trial and because, once it was discovered, he was denied a meaningful opportunity to investigate," Gruber wrote. "By denying Figueroa the opportunity to investigate the information ... the court denied him the opportunity to bolster his assertion of innocence and to impeach [Foster's] testimony. Figueroa has shown a probability that the omission of this information was sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of his trial."
Figueroa remained at a state prison in Grady Wednesday night.
Metro on 01/21/2016