A 32-year-old Little Rock man, accused of provoking his father's fatal heart attack during a fight, has been sentenced to probation after prosecutors said they could not conclusively prove the death was murder.
Sean Patrick Johnson pleaded guilty to second-degree domestic battery, reduced from second-degree murder, and terroristic threatening on Monday before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims in exchange for a sentence of 10 years on probation.
Conditions of his probation include the requirement that he complete the treatment program he's enrolled in at Recovery Centers of Arkansas and comply with its after-care program.
Johnson, represented by attorney Ron Davis, will also have to join Alcoholics Anonymous and get a job as well as pay a $1,000 fine.
Johnson's mother, the victim's wife, has endorsed the arrangement, senior deputy prosecutor Marianne Satterfield told the judge.
In April 2014, Johnson had been arguing with his father, 60-year-old Ronald Edward Johnson, in the living room of their Doe Run Drive home when the older man, who had been sitting, stood up, Satterfield said.
Johnson hit his father in the face, and Ronald Johnson collapsed and later died of a heart attack, the prosecutor said.
The older Johnson had a heart condition, but it wasn't clear whether it had been diagnosed, she said.
Medical examiners who performed the autopsy could not conclusively say that the blow from his son induced the heart attack, Satterfield told the judge.
The terroristic threatening charge was for threats Sean Johnson made against his mother, 59-year-old Hope Johnson, during the altercation, the prosecutor said.
A charge of aggravated assault against a household member, representing accusations that Sean Johnson had also threatened his mother with a knife and physically attacked her, were dropped as part of the agreement for his guilty plea. Sean Johnson is the couple's only child.
Police were called to the family home after the fight by both Hope and Sean Johnson. He reportedly had poured milk on the victim in an effort to revive him.
"I think I just killed my dad," Sean Johnson told 911 dispatchers, according to court records. "I beat the s * * * out of him because I was pissed off by the fact that he beat the s * * * out of me when I was a little kid."
When police took him into custody, he asked for officers to shoot him in the head, saying he wanted to die for what he had done and that he had not intended to kill his father, according to police reports.
He initially submitted to arrest but began to resist when officers started to take him out of the house. They used a stun gun on him then held him down so that paramedics could dose him with Haldol, an antipsychotic medication.
According to a mental evaluation conducted at the request of the defense, his mother said he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and that he had several previous suicide attempts.
The report describes his various treatments, including brief hospitalizations for depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts dating back to March 2006 when he was 22. He had been getting outpatient psychiatric treatment since he was 24.
In August 2014, he was admitted to CHI St. Vincent Infirmary for cutting himself and alcohol abuse, the report said.
He also told state doctors that he'd started drinking alcohol socially at age 17 but his consumption increased when he turned 21, and that he'd had severe withdrawal symptoms when he'd tried to quit. He also said he drank to avoid psychological distress.
In assessing his mental health, Dr. Melissa Dannacher with the Arkansas State Hospital wrote in her report to the court that she could not substantiate a bipolar diagnosis because she could not find anything in his records that showed he suffered a manic episode unless he was using alcohol or drugs.
The psychiatrist diagnosed him with borderline personality disorder, recurrent major depressive disorder in partial remission and alcohol use disorder in early remission.
Metro on 05/26/2016