When Carol Crews went into a Conway pharmacy a couple of weeks ago, she ran into the sister of a murder victim, and they talked for about half an hour.
That’s not unusual for the 20th Judicial District prosecuting attorney-elect, who has been known to give her cellphone number to victims’ families and tell them to “call anytime.”
“You get to know the victims’ families,” Crews said. “The prosecutor’s job is not just to listen but to give them guidance. The prosecutor’s job is to be the voice for those who don’t have one.”
That is a “humbling and heavy burden,” Crews said, but it’s one she welcomes.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor Crews, 36, touted her experience in the successful runoff campaign against attorney Zach Throneberry. She received 54.99 percent of the vote to his 45.01 in the Nov. 6 election.
She’ll be the first female prosecuting attorney in the 20th Judicial District, which includes Faulkner, Searcy and Van Buren counties.
Crews has been a deputy prosecutor for 11 years and, before that, was a senior trial attorney. She will succeed Luke Ferguson, who was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland, who became the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
“It’s been quite the year,” Crews said.
In December, her husband, Jordan, had heart surgery to correct a birth defect. She was working a full case load and campaigning. The couple also have a 3-year-old son, Jackson.
“You can’t do it all,” she said.
Crews took a break from teaching the 4-year-olds’ Sunday School class at Fellowship Bible Church. She didn’t cook and bake as much as she normally does.
“The staff at the prosecutor’s office has just been phenomenal,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Being the district’s first female prosecuting attorney is significant for young women who want to pursue the male-dominated role, Crews said.
Crews, the third of four children, grew up outside of Atlanta, Georgia, until her dad, Rick Thompson, took a job in Little Rock when she was 12. She went to Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School, where her specialty was choral music. She had an interest in politics and was on the debate team.
“I never thought I’d run for political office,” she said.
No one in her family was an attorney at the time, although her husband is an attorney for the Department of Justice, and a sister-in-law of Crews’ is a deputy prosecuting attorney for the 2nd Judicial District, based in Poinsett County.
Crews was a law clerk for 6th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley in Little Rock, from her second year at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law until she graduated.
“People would ask me what kind of law I wanted to do, and I said there were two things I didn’t want to do: taxes and criminal law,” she said.
But she changed her mind when, as a law clerk, she was required to work on residents’ complaints, meet with them, go over the reports and try to help them.
“Something about meeting people and guiding them through that process, I just fell in love with it,” she said.
When Crews graduated, she took a job as Jegley’s new deputy prosecutor, and she was assigned to Pulaski County Juvenile Court.
One of her mentors was her supervisor, Barbara Mariani.
“She was tenacious, well-spoken and a real advocate for justice,” Crews said. “She was my boss, but I respected her for how she carried herself.”
Mariani, senior deputy in the office, praised Crews in return.
“I’m super excited she won that race,” Mariani said. “I understand she’s the first woman prosecuting attorney [in the district] …, which is great. I always just thought she was fantastic when she was here. Pulaski County has some really big cases in juvenile court. I remember working on a child rape case with her. She’s always very prepared, organized. She cares about her victims; she’s passionate.”
Crews said she developed her passion for working on violent crimes and crimes against children while in Pulaski County.
“I was shocked at how many sex cases there were,” Crews said.
She’d been in court on this particular morning in the Faulkner County Justice Building in Conway, where she is based. She also has offices in Clinton and Marshall.
One of her cases is a pending child rape case.
I got worked up in court today,” she said, without discussing details. “People do terrible things. Even in a wonderful county like Faulkner County,” there are people who prey on children, she said.
“That type of crime doesn’t have any societal boundaries or racial boundaries,” Crews said. “It happens on both sides of the tracks, so to speak.”
She said one businessman drove from Hot Springs to have sex with two children, who were really undercover law enforcement officers. Another man drove from South Dakota to Faulkner County to meet a child.
“As a mother, it’s alarming,” she said. “There’s a real satisfaction when you can put them behind bars.”
It’s hard to leave her work at the office.
“A couple of cases were so heinous, just the facts are hard to put it on the shelf and forget about it when you get home and need to be a wife, mom or friend,” she said.
The cases don’t always work out in her favor, either.
“I’ve had to dismiss a murder case before because the case fell apart,” she said.
Although Crews said she believes the man was the murderer, going forward wasn’t right or ethical because the evidence wasn’t there.
The Founding Fathers were “brilliant,” she said, to put so many protections in the Constitution. The state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone is guilty.
“We want swift justice, but we want to do it right,” she said.
Another of her mentors is Hiland, former 20th Judicial District prosecuting attorney, who once said Crews was “born to be a prosecutor.”
“One thing he always required,” Crews said, “was to do the right thing and make the focus about the victim, not just the defendant. It’s so important for us to never lose focus of the victim. He instilled that in us, and it’s something I plan to continue.”
Crews said she wants Faulkner, Searcy and Van Buren counties to be known for being tough on violent crime and crimes against children, as well as exemplifying honesty and integrity.
The specialty courts are excellent, too, Crews said.
“I was one of the first attorneys to volunteer for teen court,” she said. Other programs for court-involved youth in Faulkner County, such as Girl Scouts and a boxing club for boys, have reduced the number of juvenile cases by 30 percent, she said.
Through the Faulkner County Drug Court, under Circuit Judge Ed Clawson, “we’ve seen lives changed,” Crews said.
Crews said she supports Renewal Ranch, a men’s residential Christian treatment facility in Perry County.
She said she’s a “big supporter” of giving people tools to help them recover from drug addiction.
“If I can help them get off drugs, home with their children and back paying taxes,” Crews said, “that’s what I want.”
Crews said her strength as a prosecutor is “evaluating a case’s strengths and weaknesses. I’d definitely say I know when to be tough and when to give them a second chance. Every case is different, every client is different, every victim is different. Ultimately, the buck stops with the jury.”
She said she is also able to establish a rapport with jurors.
“The most humbling feedback is, I’ll get phone calls or text messages from jurors,” she said.
She said one juror wrote her a thank-you note for being well-prepared in a child sex case “and how you represented that little girl so well,” the juror wrote.
“That’s the best feedback,” Crews said.
“I definitely say I’m tenacious in the courtroom,” she said.
This summer, Crews successfully prosecuted Scotty Ray Gardner for the murder of his girlfriend, Susan Heather Stubbs, in 2016 in a Conway hotel. Gardner was already on probation in another county for trying to kill his pregnant wife and her friend, Crews said. The victim’s sister was the one Crews ran into in the drug store. The jury took 15 minutes to give Gardner the first death-penalty
verdict in Faulkner County since 1989. He is on death row at the Varner Unit in Lincoln County, where he won’t be able to hurt anyone else.
That’s why Crews gladly accepts the “humbling and heavy burden” of her job.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.