High court asked to deny retrial bid
Mistrial ruled earlier in murder case
The Arkansas Supreme Court will be asked to block efforts to retry a 43-year-old North Little Rock man whose disruptive behavior while representing himself on murder charges led to the judge declaring a mistrial, the man’s lawyers said Monday.
Parnell May’s attorneys, Willard Proctor and Lee Short, said Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson failed to follow the law when he halted May’s January trial before prosecutors could finishing putting on their case.
They called on Johnson Monday to dismiss the charges against May, arguing that to put him on trial again would violate his Fifth Amendment constitutional protections against double-jeopardy.
Johnson denied their motion.
Senior deputy prosecutor Barbara Mariani defended the judge’s January actions, saying that May was out of control, ranting and raving and refusing to follow court orders, giving Johnson no choice but to shut down the trial.
May has repeatedly fought against being represented by court-appointed lawyers, but he sat through Monday’s hearing without incident. He nodded vigorously as Short addressed the judge and whispered animatedly to Proctor while taking notes during the 30-minute hearing. Short even threw his arm over May’s shoulder to consult with the defendant as they left the courtroom on Monday.
His behavior was in stark contrast to his belligerence at a June hearing that lasted three hours because his angry ranting and raving repeatedly sidetracked the judge’s efforts to review the 85 handwritten motions May had filed. He told the judge then that he’d never accept a lawyer because no attorney loved him as much as he loved himself.
At May’s January trial, the judge ejected May three times when the defendant’s temper got the best of him during the three-day trial. But the judge was bound by case law to let May return each time after he promised to behave. The judge had also twice adjourned the jury during the proceedings to admonish May about his behavior before declaring mistrial.
May is accused of beating his 41-year-old girlfriend to death. A neighbor found Ann Marie Mireles half-naked in the rain on the front steps of the couple’s Vaughn Road home in December 2016. They had lived there only three days.
Authorities say Mireles was beaten to death, but May maintains that she died of natural causes or was killed by the paramedics who tried to revive her.
According to medical testimony at May’s trial, Mireles had been hit so hard her liver had been ripped apart and her teeth had been driven through her lips. She’d been beaten so badly that the medical examiner could not count all of her injuries because of the overlapping cuts and bruises.
May was carrying Mireles’ cellphone, which had pictures of her taken inside the home. Sheriff’s deputies also found her blood on his shoes.
Prosecutors have since upgraded the charges from first-degree murder to capital murder and are now seeking a life sentence for the five-time felon, who was convicted in 1991 for manslaughter in the Louisiana stabbing death of his sister’s boyfriend when May was 15.