JONESBORO -- A convicted bank robber from Jonesboro was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison after prosecutors -- citing numerous violations including a drunken-driving arrest and a drug possession arrest late last year -- asked a judge to revoke his supervised release, but the hearing was complicated by an unusual plea request from the defendant and an incomplete test for drugs from the State Crime Lab.
Omar Guyton, 46, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for robbing a Regions Bank branch in Searcy in 2008, appeared before U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller, escorted by federal marshals into the courtroom after being transported from his holding cell in Jonesboro.
A revocation petition listed numerous violations between April 6, 2019, and Dec. 21, 2020, the most serious of which involved an arrest by Jonesboro police on suspicion of methamphetamine possession with intent to deliver, after a search in December.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens noted that Guyton, in a previous hearing held Dec. 11, had already pleaded true to 14 violation allegations that were documented before the Jonesboro drug arrest. Guyton's attorney, Dominique King, told the judge that Guyton had requested to plead no contest to the latest allegation. A no contest plea in court has the same effect as a plea of guilty but does not require the defendant to admit guilt.
But Miller didn't seem entirely sure that it would be a legitimate plea.
"I know he has the impending state case and he doesn't want to say or do anything here in court that would impact his ability to defend himself and I understand that," Miller said. "The question I have is this, because I don't get nolo pleas very often on anything."
Miller then asked Givens if the government's position would allow a no contest plea to be accepted as having the same effect as a guilty plea or if the government would still need to present its evidence to support the charge. Givens said the standard position of the U.S. attorney's office is to oppose such a plea but that the court, at its discretion, could accept the plea.
"I believe the nolo plea, as you said, has the same effect as a guilty plea," Givens said.
Miller, noting that prosecution witnesses had come to Little Rock from Jonesboro and that Guyton had been transported to the courthouse as well, decided to allow Givens to present his witnesses.
"Since the gang's all here, let's just take the evidence and see what happens," he said.
Two Jonesboro police officers testified that on Dec. 21, they went to Guyton's residence after receiving a tip that Guyton, who was on probation, had drugs in his possession.
Jason Myers testified that Guyton was sitting in his car with a cellphone in front of his apartment when he and his police dog, Rocket, pulled up. Myers said when he told Guyton he was there to conduct a search, Guyton got out of his car, locked it, and took them into his apartment.
After finding nothing inside the apartment, Myers said he told Guyton that he needed to search the car.
"At this time he became very nervous and actually stated that the vehicle belonged to another person who was not on the scene," Myers said, adding that he had run a check on the car which came back as belonging to Guyton.
After Rocket alerted on the driver's side door of the car, Myers testified, he discovered that Guyton had left the apartment. But after Myers found a key inside the apartment, he said, the car was searched and a quantity of suspected methamphetamine was discovered underneath the driver's seat.
Officer Brett Nolan testified that a baggie containing six smaller baggies of suspected methamphetamine was found, with five baggies weighing out to 3.6 grams and the sixth bag containing 1.2 grams.
"The relevance of the 3.6 grams is that is an amount commonly sold that is known as an 'eight ball' [one-eighth of an ounce] on the street," Nolan said.
U.S. probation officer Tanya Glass testified that after the Dec. 21 incident, attempts to contact Guyton were unsuccessful.
King questioned why police had suddenly gotten a tip that Guyton was involved in drugs when his only substance abuse issues previously had involved alcohol. King also noted that, because the suspected drugs taken from Guyton's car were still at the State Crime Lab awaiting testing, no one could be certain the substance found was actually methamphetamine or something else.
But Miller said the fact that the dog had alerted on the drugs, that Guyton had fled the scene and that the officers who testified had the training and experience to identify methamphetamine, provided a preponderance of evidence pointing to Guyton's guilt.
"We're not talking about a beyond a reasonable doubt standard, where you'd want to see an actual test result," he said.
Miller asked Givens if, once the lab test report is final, the prosecutor's office would share that report with him, and he left open the possibility that, should the substance turn out to be something other than an illegal substance, he might downgrade the penalty.
"If you were to get back a report that says this is flour in a bag," Miller asked Givens, "you'd let me know, right?"
"I would, Your Honor," Givens said, then added, "I do believe that there's several pieces of evidence that point to the fact that this was methamphetamine or a controlled substance."