Attorney: Court must intervene for man convicted of killing North Little Rock veterinarian

Expert testimony discredited in '79 case

The Arkansas Supreme Court must find a way for a man serving a life sentence based on discredited FBI testimony to seek relief instead of deferring to lawmakers or the governor for justice, an attorney argued Monday.

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The attorney representing Eugene Pitts, 68 -- who is serving a life sentence in the 1979 kidnapping and murder of a North Little Rock veterinarian -- argued that the revelation that FBI experts routinely proffered unscientific testimony was ample cause for Pitts to seek an appeal despite objections from state attorneys claiming there is no such route for relief.

"If there is a reasonable chance that [an] innocent person is imprisoned, it is incumbent on our court system [to] at least attempt to do something about it, and not just wash its hands and say 'there is nothing we can do; ask for a pardon,'" attorney John Wesley Hall wrote. "There should be more than minimal 'justice' in the criminal justice system; there should be full justice."

Hall filed an appeal with the Arkansas Supreme Court last June after the U.S. Justice Department announced that, in reviewing the FBI experts' testimony on cases involving microscopic hair analysis, 26 of the 28 experts offered erroneous testimony that exceeded the limits of the science.

The review by department officials has resulted in appeals by hundreds of prisoners across the country as well as a vow from federal prosecutors not to resist the appeals on procedural grounds.

One of those experts, Michael Malone, linked hair found at the murder scene to Pitts. Hall argued that this testimony against his client was crucial because the rest of the prosecution relied on a voice identification to put Pitts at the scene of the crime.

Malone also offered testimony in another Arkansas case that led to the conviction of Lonnie Strawhacker, who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1989 attack and rape of a woman who couldn't identify Strawhacker visually.

Hall and Strawhacker's attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig, have asked the Supreme Court to hear merged oral arguments on both of their cases.

State attorneys argue that both Pitts and Strawhacker have exhausted their appeals and that for the high court to consider their cases could open the floodgates to an "endless stream of re-litigation."

Hall said the "floodgates" argument was hyperbole and that, on average, the Supreme Court already handles four to six cases per week in which the court denies petitions from inmates on similar procedural grounds.

The state attorneys also argued that in the Pitts case, there was ample evidence to support Pitts' conviction and that the FBI expert didn't overstate his findings.

In Monday's brief, Hall said Malone merely paid "lip service" to the limits of his testimony and then suggested otherwise to jurors.

"Paraphrasing [Malone]: 'I'm not allowed to say I'm absolutely certain, but, yeah, for all practical purposes I am because it has to be him and nobody else.' That's the gist of this trial testimony, and it's just plain false," Hall wrote. "The FBI now admits it. The State does not."

Suggestions that the inmates seek other routes for relief -- like a gubernatorial pardon -- are insufficient, Hall argued, because such a remedy would subject the justice system to the whims of politics.

"When the truth-seeking function of a trial is subverted by perjury, and a person comes forward with compelling evidence they lied, the courts should act and not run away with it. The court system obviously has the mechanics to better find the truth than the Executive Branch [which] may be afraid of being Willie Hortoned or just afraid of being 'soft on crime' by doing the right thing," Hall said, referring to the convicted felon who fled a Massachusetts prison on a furlough and then attacked a Maryland couple.

The Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether it will hear oral arguments in either Pitts' or Strawhacker's cases.

Metro on 05/25/2016

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