Murder-trial jury foreman requests overnight break

FORT SMITH -- A Sebastian County Circuit Court jury was split Thursday in deciding the guilt or innocence of a man charged with first-degree murder, but the foreman told the judge an overnight break might help them make a decision today.

So Circuit Judge Stephen Tabor, who was poised to declare a mistrial, told the seven men and five women on the jury to return and resume their deliberations at 9 a.m.

Jurors began deliberating about 2 p.m. Thursday in the trial of Denver Wayne Pennington, 30, who is accused in the Jan. 26 shooting death of Arthur McIntyre, 33, outside a home at 3001 Alabama Ave.

Pennington also is being tried on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Pennington is claiming self-defense, that he was afraid for his safety and that of his fiancee Cymanthia VanMatre when he shot McIntyre.

Jurors deliberated for three hours before informing Tabor they were having difficulty reaching a verdict.

Tabor read an instruction urging jurors to try to reach a verdict. He said a decision in the case will have to be reached by some jury, and there was no better jury to do it than the one deliberating the case Thursday.

Jurors returned to the jury room and deliberated for another hour but made little progress. Before bringing the jury back to the courtroom, Tabor told the attorneys in the case he was going to declare a mistrial.

The jury foreman, though, suggested an overnight break could help them make progress, and Tabor agreed to let them try.

During closing arguments in the third day of the trial, deputy prosecutor Allison Houston told jurors Pennington's actions were not those of someone who killed in self-defense. He fled the scene and the county after the shooting, she said, and wiped the rifle free of fingerprints before throwing the gun into a roadside ditch in Fort Smith.

Police never recovered the gun.

In his closing argument, Pennington's attorney, Erwin Davis of Fayetteville, criticized Houston for relying on the testimony of Alexander Parrett, the owner of the house at 3001 Alabama Ave., as a source of facts surrounding the shooting.

He said Parrett, who testified he had been drunk three times that day, could not be relied on for truthfulness because he was in and out of consciousness as the events of the shooting unfolded.

Evidence presented at the trial showed McIntyre was drunk and had threatened Pennington, once with a knife, when he and VanMatre moved into a room at the residence that Parrett agreed to rent them.

Afraid for their safety, the two decided to leave the house and were loading their possessions in their car when McIntyre emerged from the house and approached them, according to testimony.

Pennington, who had picked up a loaded rifle from inside the house and pointed it at McIntyre, testified that he believed McIntyre was charging him when he shot him once in the torso.

Houston argued Pennington was not justified to use deadly force against McIntyre. McIntyre made no threats when he emerged from the house, a chain link fence stood between Pennington and McIntyre, and no weapon was found on or around McIntyre when police processed the crime scene.

NW News on 09/09/2016

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