Witness’s failure to appear causes charges to be dropped, arrest to be ordered.
Judge orders witness’s arrest
Prosecutors dropped manslaughter charges Wednesday against a 22-year-old Little Rock man, the second day in a row that authorities have had to withdraw homicide charges because a crucial witness has refused to testify.
“It’s what we hate most to have happen,” Pulaski County chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson said. “The most frustrating thing we do is to try and make someone care about someone else’s life … particularly when they have information that can bring someone to justice.”
Uncooperative and reluctant witnesses are common. Much of the time that prosecutors have to prepare for trial is consumed by finding and questioning witnesses, then making sure they go to court when needed, he said.
“It’s something that we deal with all of the time,” Johnson said. “There’s only so much we can do to compel people to testify.”
This week is unusual in that two cases were dropped on successive days, he said — the manslaughter case on Wednesday and a second-degree murder charge against a different defendant Tuesday.
Homicide cases do not regularly rely on the testimony of single eyewitnesses the way these cases did, Johnson said.
In both cases, the presiding judges responded by ordering the arrests of the witnesses. Circuit Judge Leon Johnson signed an arrest warrant for Janya Hammond for failing to show up for trial Wednesday. He had explicitly ordered the 20-year-old Maumelle woman to be in court.
Prosecutors Gray Hinojosa and Leigh Patterson told the judge that they could not prove the manslaughter charges against Kihilil Deeshun Foley without her testimony.
Foley’s trial had already been delayed from September because Hammond reportedly would not obey subpoenas to go to court. The judge had her taken into custody, but she was allowed to remain free on the condition that she report weekly to his staff and show up for the trial.
Hinojosa told the judge that Hammond subsequently refused to honor a subpoena to meet with prosecutors ahead of the trial and has avoided their efforts to talk to her.
Foley was accused of shooting Jacksonville brothers Mario Jerome Thompson, 33, and Antonio Dewayne Bland, 33, fatally wounding Thompson in May 2016 at the Westwood Apartments on Little Rock’s Nandina Circle.
Police said Hammond was Foley’s girlfriend. She told detectives that she saw Foley, whom she called Kaydee, struggling with Thompson after the older man showed up at her apartment and asked to use her phone while also acting strangely. Hammond said she saw Thompson on top of Foley, then heard a gunshot.
On Tuesday, the second-degree murder charge against Eric Aaron McFadden of North Little Rock was dropped after witness Edwin Ray, 60, did not show up for court on time. Ray had been arrested before by Circuit Judge Herb Wright for skipping court and forcing McFadden’s trial to be rescheduled.
The judge ordered Ray’s arrest Tuesday but withdrew the order after Ray arrived later in the day, court records show. Prosecutors said Ray was being treated for mental illness.
McFadden was accused of fatally beating 42-year-old Alexander Judd Wyles with a piece of lumber during an October 2016 fight at Ray’s Wildrose Lane home in the McAlmont community just outside North Little Rock.