Attorneys begin Lewis appeal in Realtor death

Four weeks after Arron Lewis was sentenced to life in prison for abducting and killing Little Rock real estate agent Beverly Carter, his attorneys have begun the appeal process, an automatic procedure for defendants convicted of capital murder.

The Arkansas Supreme Court reviews all capital-murder convictions. Last year, there were nine such appeals, four of them from Pulaski County, court records show. There were eight in 2014, with three from Pulaski County.

Once the trial transcript is filed with the high court — it can take months to prepare — Lewis’ defense attorney Bill James will have 40 days to file his brief challenging the legitimacy of Lewis’ conviction — although the court regularly allows more time, if an extension is requested.

Representing the state, lawyers for the attorney general’s office have a month to respond, although they, too, can get extensions. James will get another 15 days to respond to the attorney general’s arguments before justices consider the case.

Jurors deliberated about an hour last month to convict Lewis, two days after his 35th birthday. He was convicted of capital murder and kidnapping for Carter’s September 2014 abduction.

The capital-murder charge carries an automatic life sentence. The nine women and three men on the jury added a second life term on the kidnapping count after spending about six minutes deliberating Lewis’ punishment.

Carter suffocated under a mask of green duct tape that Lewis put over her face. She then was buried behind a Cabot concrete plant owned by a company where Lewis once worked.

Authorities said Lewis, with help from his wife, posed as a potential homebuyer, then overpowered Carter when she dropped her guard.

Prosecutors John Johnson and Barbara Mariani described Carter’s murder as terrifying and agonizing. They said at Lewis’ trial that the 50-year-old mother of three also was at an unusual disadvantage in trying to defend herself because she was still in pain from surgery she’d undergone a couple of months earlier.

Carter, who was known statewide in the real estate industry, was last seen alive by friends and co-workers, who said she was going to show a home in Scott to an unnamed buyer who had promised to pay in cash.

Her car, with her purse inside, was found in front of the house, which was less than 5 miles from her own home. Her husband had gone to look for Carter when she didn’t return home that night.

Lewis and his wife, Crystal Lowery, 43, first became suspects in the case when sheriff ’s deputies were able to track to Lowery’s phone a mysterious 16-minute call on the night Carter disappeared.

Lowery testified against Lewis in exchange for a 30-year prison sentence for first-degree murder and kidnapping. She admitted to briefly helping keep Carter prisoner, then assisting Lewis by using her cellphone as a flashlight on the night he dug the hole to bury the real estate agent.

Lowery’s testimony rebutted statements that Lewis had arranged to be published on the Internet, and to which he testified in court, that Lowery had suffocated Carter during a consensual sex act.

That manner of death would be almost impossible, and there’s never been a documented case of that kind, the medical examiner, who performed the autopsy, testified.