The state has 30 days to either release a North Little Rock man from prison, where he is serving a life sentence, or begin new criminal proceedings against him, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson issued the order after agreeing with a magistrate judge's April 26 findings that Elliott Harold Finch Jr.'s Sixth Amendment right to represent himself was violated during his 2016 jury trial in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Harris recommended that Wilson reverse the ruling of the Arkansas Supreme Court, which upheld Finch's convictions based on three factual findings, two of which Harris said weren't in line with the evidence.
On Dec. 1, 2016, the jury convicted Finch, 40, of three charges accusing him of breaking into his ex-girlfriend's home and threatening her with a gun. Because of previous convictions for violent crimes, he was automatically sentenced to life in prison after the guilty verdicts on charges of aggravated residential burglary, aggravated assault and first-degree terroristic threatening.
Finch asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to reverse his conviction on the grounds that Circuit Judge Leon Johnson was wrong to deny his numerous requests to let him represent himself at the trial. The state's high court rejected the appeal, however, and Finch then turned to the federal courts. Through attorney Craig Lambert of North Little Rock, Finch argued that his conviction must be thrown out because his civil rights were violated when he wasn't allowed to represent himself.
Harris agreed. Her written order cited numerous attempts Finch made to fire his public defender and represent himself, as well as psychological findings that he understood the legal process. She said Johnson didn't conduct the right kind of examination to determine whether Finch understood the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation.
Harris also disagreed with the Supreme Court that Finch's efforts to represent himself were ambiguous and that his conduct could have been seen as disruptive.
Wilson accepted Harris' findings and recommendations, noting that under a 1975 U.S. Supreme Court case, "Faretta v. California, a defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to represent himself if he knowingly and intelligently waives his right to a lawyer."
Wilson's order directs the state to release Finch from prison within 30 days "or commence new criminal proceedings against him."
On Wednesday, Pulaski County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Johnson said, "Our intention is to retry him."
He and Lambert said they expect the attorney general's office, which represents the state, to file a notice of appeal of Wilson's order within 30 days.
"They always do," Lambert said. He said the state probably would then ask Wilson to stay his ruling while the appeal is pending. But he said he will ask that Finch be released on bail while the appeal is pending.
Lambert said Wednesday that he hadn't yet spoken to Finch to relay the good news, but "I sent him a letter yesterday."
Finch, formerly of Jonesboro, also was charged with kidnapping, but the jury deadlocked on that charge.
All the charges stemmed from his arrest on Aug. 23, 2013, when Roshondra Wesley of Jacksonville called police to report that while she was in the shower about 11 p.m., Finch walked into the bathroom with a pistol, telling her that if she screamed or made noise, he would kill her and her 18-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter, who were asleep in their rooms. She said she sat on her bed while Finch paced back and forth, accusing her of ruining his life by leading police to question him at work.
She said that after about four hours, he put down the gun and they went to sleep. She said he let her leave the house the next morning to take her daughter to school, and instead she drove her daughter to a nearby park and called police. Officers surrounded the house, rescued her son and persuaded Finch to surrender. They said it appeared he had broken in through a bedroom window.
In May 2006, Finch was sentenced to 15 years in prison for abducting his daughter, then 3, and the girl's mother, Denitra Forrest, from the woman's Jonesboro home, after Forrest broke up with him and began dating another man.
Metro on 06/13/2019