Governor’s son fighting DWI conviction

Appealing own guilty plea a trial strategy tactic, defense attorney says

Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s son pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in December.

Now, he’s appealing that conviction.

William Asa Hutchinson III’s attorney, Bill Horton, filed a notice of appeal Jan. 11 in Washington County Circuit Court. Hutchinson, 43, entered the guilty plea Dec. 13 in West Fork District Court.

Jury trials aren’t allowed in Arkansas district courts, so people sometimes plead guilty there so they can appeal the case to circuit court, said Clinton “Casey” Jones, the judge who presided over Hutchinson’s case in West Fork District Court.

Horton said it was a trial strategy move.

“We didn’t want to have a trial in district court, so we pled it there,” he said. “Depending on how the facts shake out, we’ll decide whether we plead it in circuit court or whether we go to trial. It has nothing to do with who he is. Every case would be treated the same way.”

Jones said the case was presented to him as a first DWI. That means Hutchinson hadn’t been convicted of DWI within the previous five years.

Jones sentenced Hutchinson to 365 days in jail, with 364 days suspended. Jones gave Hutchinson credit for one day served in jail, resulting in no additional jail time after his guilty plea.

Jones ordered Hutchinson to pay a $1,000 fine and $340 in court costs.

Hutchinson was arrested after Arkansas State Police troopers stopped him around 3 a.m. May 28 near West Fork, according to police documents.

Hutchinson initially pleaded innocent.

His appeal is scheduled for trial in Washington County Circuit Court on May 16.

Hutchinson was convicted of drunken driving in Fayetteville in 1996, according to Arkansas Democrat-Gazette archives.

Hutchinson had another DWI charge arising from a traffic accident Jan. 24, 2016, on Interstate 49 near Fayetteville, when his pickup crashed into a guardrail just before 4 a.m.

State police responding to the crash described Hutchinson’s eyes as “bloodshot and watery,” according to police reports.

Hutchinson pleaded innocent then, too.

In November 2017, a Fayetteville judge convicted Hutchinson of driving while intoxicated, careless and prohibited driving and refusing to submit to a chemical test, but those charges were dismissed because of errors in citations.

A first citation marked the conditions at the time of the accident as “daylight,” despite the accident occurring at 3 a.m., and a second citation correcting the first listed the location of the incident incorrectly.

Chad Atwell, Hutchinson’s attorney at the time, argued that Hutchinson never received the citation actually used against him in court and that the statute of limitations on the corrected citation had passed. Circuit Judge Mark Lindsay agreed; the case was dismissed in July 2017.

Hutchinson is a lawyer in Rogers.