FAYETTEVILLE -- A mentally disabled man convicted of rape will remain in jail serving a 45-year sentence as a result of an Arkansas Supreme Court decision released Thursday.
The high court reversed and dismissed a Washington County Circuit Court ruling the man received inadequate legal representation at trial.
Mario Deshaun Thompson was convicted in June 2014 of sexually abusing two children and raping a third. The jury recommended 10 years in prison on each sexual abuse charge and 25 years on the rape charge.
Circuit Judge William Storey opted to run the sentences consecutively for a total of 45 years.
Thompson's parents, who are also his legal guardians, asked for a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel. Circuit Judge Mark Lindsay, who succeeded Storey on the case, granted the motion in February 2016.
Lindsay ruled Thompson's defense attorney at trial, James Evans, didn't adequately represent him. Lindsay vacated Thompson's convictions and granted him a new trial on the issues of guilt and sentencing.
Lindsay's ruling said failure to introduce evidence of a guardianship, based on Thompson's mental disability and low IQ, tainted the guilt portion of his trial. Lindsay also said failure to interview or call any mitigating witnesses, other than Thompson's parents, constituted ineffective assistance of counsel in the sentencing phase of Thompson's trial requiring, at the minimum, a new sentencing hearing. Lindsay also said there were several errors involving verdict forms, jury instructions and the way questions asked by the jury were answered.
Prosecutors appealed.
In a split decision Thursday, the high court sided with the state and said Evans' decisions not to introduce certain evidence were made because had the information come in, the state would have "completely obliterated appellee's defense."
"Counsel's actions in declining to introduce evidence of the guardianship kept the state from introducing potentially devastating evidence in response," the ruling by Justice Robin Wynne said. "Therefore, the trial court clearly erred in finding that appellee was prejudiced by counsel's decision."
In a dissent, Justice Josephine Linker Hart said the majority applied an impossible standard for a defendant to meet to establish he suffered prejudice.
NW News on 02/24/2017