Prosecutor’s actions proper, judge finds
Defense’s claim of vindictive additional charge rejected; woman’s trial to go ahead
Accusations of vindictive prosecution against the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney’s office were rejected Tuesday by a circuit judge who found no wrongdoing over the way criminal charges were filed against a Little Rock woman accused of participating in two January shootings.
Judge Leon Johnson also rebuffed allegations that prosecutors had leveled baseless charges against the woman, ruling that there was sufficient evidence to take her to trial.
Chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson, under questioning by senior deputy prosecutor Leigh Patterson, told the judge there was no way that the accusations of vindictiveness made by a defense attorney against deputy prosecutor Grayson Hinojosa could be true.
Johnson, who testified for about 30 minutes, said that Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley has established procedures that shield his deputies from outside pressures and influences as they decide the appropriate charges to file against criminal defendants.
Jegley, who was first elected in 1997, attended Tuesday’s hearing but was not called to testify.
Assistant Public Defender Lou Marczuk filed the complaint against Hinojosa after additional charges were filed against Tiffany Rena Campbell while she was awaiting trial on charges of aggravated robbery and attempted capital murder.
Campbell, 36, has been jailed almost nine months over accusations that she and an unknown man robbed and shot Mark Caster at his home at 4610 Gum Springs Road the evening of Jan. 19.
Last month, prosecutors added terroristic-act and burglary charges over accusations that — less than an hour after Caster was shot — Campbell and an unknown man, armed with a gun, forced their way into the home of Jimmy Ellis at 5001 W. 21st St., stole jewelry and shot him while fleeing.
Marczuk told the judge that the timing of the new charges — a week after prosecutors had supposedly turned over all of the evidence against his client on the original charges — made him suspicious of prosecutors’ motives.
That suspicion was compounded by the amount of time it has taken for prosecutors to provide him with all of the evidence against his client on those new charges.
He told the judge the circumstances led him to believe that Hinojosa was trying to punish Campbell for challenging the accusations against her and asserting her right to trial.
The chief deputy prosecutor said the question about the timing of when some charges were filed was because, in part, of an ongoing police investigation that Hinojosa could not have known about.
The timing of the filing was also affected by difficulties prosecutors had in reaching Little Rock detective Aaron Onken to resolve questions about the case, Johnson told the judge.
In rejecting the defense’s claim of vindictive prosecution, the judge agreed with Patterson that prosecutors had done nothing wrong.
Patterson questioned the chief deputy prosecutor about the process Jegley’s office uses to review arrests and police investigations before filing formal charges.
Under the review process, felony charges are not filed in Pulaski and Perry counties until they have been examined by at least two prosecutors, and as many as five, Johnson testified.
No one has the authority to circumvent the process, he told the judge, testifying that homicide cases are subjected to the highest scrutiny.
Arrests are reviewed while police typically consult with prosecutors ahead of warrant arrests, Johnson told the judge. In some cases, police also can submit their findings for prosecutors to determine whether there’s sufficient evidence to make an arrest, he testified.
Charges are not filed until the examining prosecutors are satisfied there is sufficient evidence, Johnson said.
If they have questions or concerns, prosecutors return the case file to the detective with a request for more information, he said, emphasizing that they only can ask police to do more, not force them.