Top court rules against killer in slain Realtor case

Evidence obtained as police searched in 2014 for Realtor Beverly Carter — and as they zeroed in on Arron Lewis as the suspect — was appropriate for use at his murder trial, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a unanimous decision, the high court rejected Lewis’ bid to toss evidence used to obtain his capital murder and kidnapping conviction last year.

The decision upholds the ruling by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright to allow statements Lewis made to police, evidence from his wrecked car, a voice recording of the victim and subpoenaed telephone records to be presented at the trial, all over Lewis’ objections.

The opinion by Chief Justice Dan Kemp sided with Lewis on one point, rejecting the state’s cross-appeal of Wright’s decision to suppress some of the evidence discovered in Lewis’ black Ford Fusion. Kemp wrote that the state’s appeal of that decision was untimely.

While none of the justices said they would have sided with Lewis’ motions to suppress evidence — possibly prompting a new trial — Justice Josephine Hart said she would have taken a different approach.

By relying heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the 2004 case United States v. Patane, Hart wrote that the majority tried to “pigeon hole” the rationale of a case in which the circumstances were different.

In Patane, the U.S. high court allowed the admission of physical evidence obtained with the help of statements otherwise barred from court because a suspect was not read his full Miranda rights.

But Lewis had been read his rights, twice, Hart wrote, and still offered evidence on his phone to police, which was later used in court. In his appeal, Lewis’ attorneys argued that the Arkansas justices should reject using Patane, because the state constitution offers broader protections than the U.S. Constitution. Kemp rejected that argument.

In addition to expressing disappointment at the outcome for his client, Lewis’ attorney, Mike Kaiser, said Thursday that Kemp’s opinion set a bad precedent.

“My concern is it is going to essentially encourage law enforcement to violate people’s Miranda rights in hopes of recovering physical evidence,” Kaiser said.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge supports the court’s decision to keep Lewis in prison, spokesman Judd Deere said Thursday, and will move forward applying the new precedent.

During pretrial hearings, Lewis sought to suppress the evidence, claiming police had illegally searched the car he flipped while being tailed in the days after Carter’s disappearance from a home she had sought to show to a client. That client was later determined to be Lewis through subpoenaed phone records, which he also sought to suppress.

After the car wreck and a subsequent escape from the hospital, police arrested Lewis and read to him his Miranda rights. Still, he made two statements to police and played them a recording on his cellphone in which Carter was heard pleading with her husband not to call the police, or “it could be bad.”

While Wright agreed to suppress one of Lewis’ statements, he and the Supreme Court ruled the other to be admissible.

Carter’s body was found buried in a shallow grave behind the Argos concrete manufacturing plant in Cabot, where Lewis used to work, on Sept. 30, 2014.