The retrial of a former state legislator and Republican Party fundraiser scheduled for May 17 has been delayed until later this year following an order issued this week by the federal judge presiding over the case.
Following a telephone conference held Wednesday under seal, Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. granted an oral motion entered by attorneys for former state Sen. Gilbert Baker to delay the trial. Later that day, Marshall entered an order resetting the trial date to Nov. 7.
Baker, 65, of Conway, was acquitted of one count of conspiracy to commit bribery after a lengthy trial last year, but the jury deadlocked on eight other counts against him; one count of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds and seven counts of honest services wire fraud. Baker was indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2019.
Following the jury's announcement that it could not come to a decision, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters said she would retry Baker on the remaining counts.
Baker was accused of bribing former Faulkner County Circuit Court Judge Mike Maggio to reduce a $5.2 million jury award in a wrongful-death suit filed against Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Greenbrier, which is owned by Michael Morton of Fort Smith, by funneling $30,000 in campaign contributions from Morton to Maggio through a series of political action committees.
Maggio, who was convicted of bribery in 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, testified in Baker's trial in exchange for a reduction in his sentence. He was recently released from prison after serving five years. Morton, who has not been charged with any crime in connection to the matter, also testified.
The case itself was complex, with no clearly defined "smoking gun," prosecutors and Baker's attorneys agreed. Prosecutors instead tried to connect dots that they said pointed to Baker's guilt.
Relying on phone records showing clusters of calls and texts between Baker and Maggio and between Baker and Morton around relevant times in the government's case, prosecutors attempted to tie evidence showing increased communications at critical times in the case to illegal activity. But, without recordings of the calls or printouts of the text messages -- which had been deleted in what Baker's attorneys said were routine mass data deletions -- the actual substance of those communications could not be proved.
At one point in deliberations, a juror sent Marshall a note saying the jury had deadlocked on all counts, prompting the judge to take the step of releasing the jurors for the day and telling them to return the next day to continue deliberations after taking time to step away from the case.
The move, known as an "Allen charge," is commonly referred to as "dynamiting" the jury to break a stalemate. Although some states consider an Allen charge coercive and prohibit its use, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld its use in an 1896 ruling in Allen v. U.S.
After another day and a half of deliberations, Marshall told attorneys for both sides of the decision to abandon efforts to reach a consensus in the eight remaining counts on the indictment. On August 12, 2021, the trial concluded with Baker's acquittal on the conspiracy charge. The following day, Marshall declared a mistrial and on August 26, Peters filed a notice of intent to retry Baker on the remaining eight counts.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Allison Bragg, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Little Rock, declined to comment on the matter. Baker's legal team, Blake Hendrix and Annie Depper of Little Rock, could not comment, Hendrix said, because the hearing was sealed.