The state Crime Laboratory has not been able to extract a video from Hot Springs Police Department servers in the negligent homicide case against a Garland County circuit judge charged in the hot-car death of his 17-month-old son, a deputy prosecutor said.
A week ago, special Circuit Judge John Langston gave prosecutors a week to give the court a status update about the missing video as well as a thumb drive.
The video reportedly shows Garland County Circuit Judge Wade Naramore entering and exiting the courthouse the day his son Thomas died after being left in a hot car for more than six hours.
The thumb drive contains a copy of Naramore's cellphone records.
Deputy prosecutor Thomas Young said Monday that technicians at the Crime Lab -- where the Hot Springs Police Department's computer servers were taken June 2 -- located the video but are not able to retrieve it from the servers for distribution and viewing by the court.
"I have personally not seen it or touched it, but the genius at the Crime Lab was able to recover it and is trying to convert it to a program that we can all use," Young said.
The cellphone records have been located, he added.
Defense attorney Erin Cassinelli of Lassiter & Cassinelli said she was glad to get the update on the missing evidence and said further action "likely won't be necessary."
"The issue will not be resolved, however, until all parties have the information, and I understand that the state is working towards that end," Cassinelli said.
At a June 14 hearing, Cassinelli said the defense will be "making a motion" if the evidence is not turned over soon. When asked, Cassinelli would not say what type of motion that would be.
Not having the video in court would be harmful to Naramore's defense, Cassinelli said at the June 14 hearing.
The defense was not told that the video or thumb drive was missing until after Cassinelli filed a request for a "bill of particulars" May 12. The defense had been asking for the full case file for "months and months," Cassinelli said.
Young maintained the evidence is not "missing" but is simply not accessible at this time.
"I'm told the state Crime Lab technician has already retrieved it, but it's a matter of getting it into a format we can use," Young said.
Cassinelli said J̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶1̶4̶ Monday* that she does not believe anything besides the video is missing from her case file.
"However, I can't ever say for certain because I cannot identify things that are missing if I am not aware of their existence," she said.
Hot Springs Police Chief Jason Stachey said earlier this month that if he determines evidence was indeed lost in any case, not just Naramore's, he would order an immediate internal-affairs investigation.
Stachey did not return messages left J̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶1̶4̶ Monday* to determine if an internal investigation is being conducted.
A pretrial hearing for the case is set for July 29 with a jury trial scheduled for Aug. 15-19. The trial was originally set for last week, but Langston granted a prosecution request to delay the trial because the current prosecution team was only recently assigned to the case.
Naramore pleaded innocent in March after he was arrested Feb. 11 in the July 24 death of his son Thomas, who authorities determined died from excessive heat after being left unattended in Naramore's car.
The high temperature in Hot Springs that day was 101 degrees shortly before 5 p.m., according to National Weather Service records.
Naramore could have been charged with a felony, but prosecutors charged him with negligent homicide -- a Class A misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to one year in jail and a fine up to $2,500.
An Arkansas Democrat-Gazette review in August of fully adjudicated cases in Arkansas showed that of heatstroke deaths involving 11 children left in vehicles since 2005, there were five convictions: four on misdemeanor charges and one on a felony charge of negligent homicide.
In 2015, there were 24 children nationwide who died after being left in a hot car, according to statistics from the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science. So far this year, there have been 15 child deaths nationally for the same cause.
Arkansas ranks the 11th-highest in deaths of children left in vehicles.
Metro on 06/21/2016
*CORRECTION: Defense attorney Erin Cassinelli said Monday that she did not believe anything besides a video is missing from the file of the negligent homicide case against Garland County Circuit Judge Wade Naramore. Hot Springs Police Chief Jason Stachey did not return messages left Monday inquiring about an internal investigation about evidence missing in the case. The dates were incorrect in this article.