Authorities have not recovered a video pertinent to a circuit judge's negligent-homicide case even though the state Crime Laboratory is now in possession of several pieces of computer equipment believed to hold the missing footage.
Crime Lab technicians have a Hot Springs Police Department server, a thumb drive, a detective's desktop computer and a Garland County Courthouse computer server.
They are attempting to extract a video that prosecutors say shows Garland County Circuit Judge Wade Naramore entering and exiting the courthouse on the day his 17-month-old son Thomas died after being left in a hot car for more than six hours.
Deputy prosecutor Thomas Young said Tuesday that he was incorrect when he said Monday that technicians had located the missing video but were unable to pull it from the servers.
The hours of video found on the server did not have any connection to the footage from July 24, the day Thomas Naramore died, Young said.
"We did recover five hours worth of video, but it's not all our stuff. It's not all of the Naramore footage," Young said. "Some of it is there, but not all of it."
The defense team in the case, Little Rock attorneys Erin Cassinelli of Lassiter & Cassinelli and Patrick Benca of Benca & Benca, were not notified of the missing evidence until they filed a motion May 12 to compel production of discoverable material from the prosecution.
Since then, the prosecution has been working with the Hot Springs Police Department and the Crime Lab to recover the video. Cellphone records initially lost in the case were found last week after special Circuit Judge John Langston gave the prosecution a week to give a status update on the missing evidence.
Langston and Cassinelli both said previously that if the evidence is not made available soon, further action may be necessary in the case. Neither clarified what that action would be.
"We just want an accurate, final answer to this issue," Cassinelli said Tuesday. "Then we can decide what, if anything, needs to be addressed with regard to it."
Young said Tuesday that he has high hopes the courthouse video will be recovered. He added that he had previously viewed the video and "as far as evidentiary value for either side, I don't think we have much."
"It's a parked car," Young said. "Only a parked car and the defendant getting out and getting back in. That's it."
Cassinelli disagreed.
"Knowing what I know about the routine around the courthouse and the events of the date at issue, I believe it has significant evidentiary value, and we are entitled to review it and to present it to a jury," she said.
The video footage is not actually "missing," Young said, explaining that the file is corrupted and technicians are trying to fix it and pull it off the servers.
Hot Springs Police Chief Jason Stachey agreed.
"The evidence was always there. This is not something where an officer picks up a piece of evidence, leaves it on a bench only to come back and it's missing," he said. "That is not the case in this incident."
Stachey said a detective went to the Garland County courthouse in July last year and copied the footage onto a thumb drive. When the detective returned to the Police Department, the video was viewed by several employees.
"He believed that he copied that video on to a working folder on his computer," Stachey said. "That was not the case. Fast forward into May 2016. When detectives are copying the case files for the prosecutor, it was discovered that this video was not in those files."
Stachey said he does not believe an internal affairs investigation or personnel action is necessary at this time because of the mishap. He said the department is always reviewing its policies and procedures to ensure that best practices are applied. If something happens, like in this instance, the department will examine it and try to "evolve to make sure there are not any more issues," Stachey said.
The Hot Springs Police Department was the first law enforcement agency in the state to achieve accreditation status from the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police. The process took two years of training and audits, which included evidence processing.
"Our detectives investigate 175 to 300 cases per month," Stachey said. "I want people to understand that if we see something we need to address, we're going to address it. Period. Any issue."
Stachey said there is no conspiracy within the department on the Naramore case.
"We've always had high values with emphasis on integrity, more specifically ethics. There is not a conspiracy here. There is no compromise of integrity here," Stachey said. "We're going to conduct ourselves no matter what kind of case or who is involved in the same exact manner, in a professional manner that is conducive to what the community expects from us.
"There is no cover-up. There is no third gunman on the Dallas square. This is what it is."
A pretrial hearing for the case is set for July 29 with a jury trial scheduled for Aug. 15-19.
Metro on 06/22/2016