Naramore’s attorneys question handling of evidence by police
The Hot Springs Police Department’s lead investigator in the negligent homicide case against Division 2 Circuit Judge Wade Naramore testified Friday that he didn’t follow proper procedure for entering into evidence video defense attorneys say is critical to their case.
Investigator Mark Fallis testified that the video shows Naramore exiting and entering his car at the Garland County Courts Building on July 24, 2015, the day he left his 18-monthold son, Thomas, in the back seat for more than six hours. The boy was pronounced dead later that afternoon with a 107-degree core body temperature at the time of death, according to the probable cause affidavit in support of Naramore’s Feb. 11 arrest on the class A misdemeanor charge.
Testimony during Friday’s pretrial hearing indicated that the police department, the city’s information technology department and the Arkansas State Crime Lab have been unable to access the video since Fallis downloaded it onto the flash drive from the courts building’s server on the day of the incident.
Fallis testified that he thought he transferred the video onto the police department’s server, but the video couldn’t be found when a special prosecutor assigned to the case asked to see it in May. Fallis told defense attorney Patrick Benca he kept the thumb drive in his desk drawer, and that he had not documented copying the video onto the server. Benca’s examination also revealed that the video was not listed in Fallis’ initial evidence report.
“I believe I put it on the server, but it’s not there, so I can’t say for sure,” Fallis told Benca, noting that his report on the video’s contents is limited to the time Naramore arrives at the courts building and the time he leaves. Sgt. Chris Hayes, Fallis’ supervisor, testified that he and Fallis watched the beginning and end of the video but fast forwarded through the intervening three hours of footage.
Fallis told the court he uses the thumb drive to collect crime scene videos that he transfers to the department’s server, explaining that the thumb drive also contained video from a robbery that happened earlier this year. Jeff Taylor, the crime lab’s digital evidence section chief, testified that the thumb drive contained “thousands” of files related to items of evidence concerning other cases. The police department submitted the thumb drive and several other items thought to contain the video to the Crime Lab last month.
Save a one-minute clip of video showing the courts building’s parking lot, Taylor testified that he couldn’t access segments sought by the defense after analyzing the thumb drive and Fallis’ desktop computer. Taylor said the short segment didn’t indicate when the footage was recorded, as it lacked an embedded time stamp.
Fallis testified that his handling of the thumb drive wasn’t consistent with proper chain of custody procedure. The internal investigation into the department’s handling of the matter is close to concluding, Police Chief Jason Stachey testified. He told the court he was unaware of the unavailability of the video until a reporter asked him about it.
Two of the exhibits the defense entered into the record were the reports Stachey instructed Fallis and Hayes to submit after Stachey discovered that the video couldn’t be accessed. The defense didn’t learn of the reports until Fallis and Hayes testified Friday that they had written them at Stachey’s request.
The defense has been seeking the video since Naramore was arraigned in March. Its July 20 motion to compel its production followed an earlier such pleading filed in May. The second motion argues that the video shows Naramore was unaware he had left his son in the back seat.
Co-defense attorney Erin Cassinelli asked Special Judge John Langston to exclude the admission of any evidence from the video other than the times Naramore exited and returned to his car.
“They can’t have the benefit of testifying to a video that they lost that they sort of watched,” Cassinelli said after the hearing. “If you didn’t watch it and you lost it, then you shouldn’t be able to replace that with what you may or may not remember about it that benefits the state. We don’t need that kind of speculative testimony.”
She also asked for a jury instruction telling jurors that the video was mishandled, and that it contains information material to Naramore’s defense. Langston said he’d make a ruling on both motions before the trial’s Aug. 15 start date.
“I think the jury’s entitled to know that there was some suspicious circumstances that surrounded the loss of that critical piece of evidence,” Cassinelli said, noting that it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for the defense to ask for a more severe remedy, such as a dismissal. She told the court the mishandling of the thumb drive and the prosecution’s failure to comply with numerous discovery requests violated Naramore’s constitutional rights and the rules for criminal procedure.
Special Prosecutor Tom Young told the court that the video is irrelevant to the charge facing Naramore, explaining that the state isn’t alleging that Naramore acted purposefully.
“It shows him getting in and out of the car,” Young said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with what we’ve accused him off. The crime occurred when he forgot his child in the car.”
Second Judicial District Prosecutor Scott Ellington, whose office was assigned to the case after the Garland County prosecutor’s office recused, said the scrutiny the case has received amplifies missteps that wouldn’t normally be brought to the public’s attention in matters of less interest.
Ellington appeared in court Friday under a subpoena requested by the defense, which wanted him to stipulate that he had received numerous letters inquiring about the video’s status. Ellington told Langston that he had received the letters and was unaware of the issues with the video until one of his deputies informed him in May.
“In a high-profile case, you stub your toe, then all of sudden it just looks terrible,” Ellington said after the hearing. “In the run-of-the-mill cases, these things get worked out. The evidence might be excluded, but you go on and move forward. (The media) is not reporting on a lot of that stuff that happens in many cases that we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.”