LITTLE ROCK — Defense attorneys for the Marianna man accused of killing a Little Rock TV anchor claim police have repeatedly misled and lied to their client since identifying him as a suspect both in the October slaying in Little Rock and an April 2008 rapein his hometown.
They are seeking to have every statement he's made to investigators as well as key DNA evidence thrown out of court.
The allegations are part of a six-page motion to suppress, one of 13 filings the defense has submitted this month ahead of Curtis Lavelle Vance's court appearance on Oct. 6, his last scheduled hearing before his November capital murder trial in the death of Anne Pressly.
Most of the motions are routine filings involving jury selection and evidence presentation regularly filed in death-penalty cases, but Vance's defense team is also petitioning Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza to sequester jurors, order that they get more pay than the state provides and make provisions for jurors to be eligible for free child care. The attorneys also want the judge to alter the court's traditional seating for trial so the defense team has the seats closest to the jury.
Chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson on Friday rebuffed claims that police have done anything wrong. He said he's preparing written rebuttals that will be filed this week in advance of next week's hearing. As far as jury compensation and attorney seating, Johnson said those requests aren't necessarily a concern for prosecutors.
"We just want the regular protocols that have been upheld time after time by the Supreme Court," he said.
In their seating request, the defense fears that a jury would be intimidated by the anticipated large turnout of the press and Pressly supporters. The 26-year-old KATV, Channel 7, news anchor was found beaten and unconscious in her home in The Heights neighborhood on Oct. 20 and died five days later having never regained consciousness. At Vance's arrest on the eve of Thanksgiving, police reported linking him to Pressly by DNA, and court filings show the genetic material came from hair. The amount of hair and where it was discovered haven't been revealed, although filings show that investigators lifted potential evidence from Pressly's comforter and underwear. The defense is challenging the DNA with independent testing.
Pressly supporters, led by her parents, have regularly filled at least half of Piazza's six-pew courtroom during Vance's seven court appearances. The media's interest in the proceedings routinely result in a scrum of photographers and reporters jostling for position to document the defendant's every utterance, with Vance usually rewarding reporters with a brief statement.
"These observers customarily sit behind the counsel table nearest to the jury box, as that is the table often occupied by the prosecution," the two-page filing states. "This crowd of people is so close to the jury box that their proximity can have an intimidating effect on the jury and make them inclined to decide issues in favor of the state out of a misplaced desire to show sensitivity toward the victim's family and friends."
Piazza has publicly pondered moving the proceedings from his court, one of the smallest trial settings in the Pulaski County Courthouse, to a larger courtroom because of the public interest in the case and complaints of media misconduct.
Vance's defense also wants Piazza to consider the seating switch, arguing there's no good reason why prosecutors should sit closer to jurors if it could affect Vance's ability to receive a fair trial. Piazza's courtroom is the only one of the five criminal courts where prosecutors sit closest to the jury.
The seating is also a matter of security. The defense table hides a bolt to chain potentially dangerous defendants to the floor, allowing bailiffs to restrain the defendant out of sight of jurors who might be prejudiced by seeing the defendant in shackles. In two courts, both sides share a desk and in the other two, the defense sits closest.
In their sequestration motion, the defense is asking the judge to provide housing for the jurors to keep them away from not only press coverage, but also to shield them from the comments of inquisitive friends, family and spectators. For similar reasons, the attorneys also want the judge to make the jurors surrender their cell phones during the Nov. 2 trial, which is scheduled to last a week. Some circuit judges already require jurors to give up their phones during trial.
The defense acknowledges jurors would be inconvenienced by sequestration, but in a companion motion, they're asking the judge to order that jurors be paid for their service at their regular wages, not the rates set by state law, and also that jurors who might otherwise have to put their children in day care be provided with day care by the state. State law provides that jurors can earn up to $50 for each day of trial,and makes provisions that they can be compensated for mileage in limited circumstances.
But $50 per day translates to $6.25 per hour in an eight hour workday, the federal minimum wage, and $5.15 an hour, the state minimum, for a 10-hour day, the defense notes. Jurors in capital murder cases are usually required to work longer hours, according to the defense filing, making jury service impractical for many potential jurors. The earnings loss could distract jurors against their client, the defense argues, or even eliminate potential jurors from serving because of the hardship of lost wages or lack of child care, they argue.
"Absent adequate compensation, it is practically impossible for wage laborers and persons caring for young children to serve on the jury. Many well-qualified potential jurors live paycheck to paycheck, and without that paycheck or its equivalent provided by the state or the county, it is financially impossible for them to serve," the filing states. "The de facto exclusion of these groups violates defendant's rights. Daily wage earners and primary caregivers for young children may be groups with a particular understanding of defendant's predicament. Likewise, those with children will likely appreciate mitigation evidence pertaining to childhood abuse, neglect and trauma."
In the motion to suppress, the defense wants to throw out every statement Vance has made to authorities, plus the DNA sample he first gave to investigators, alleging at least five instances of police violating Vance's rights, both in Little Rock and in Marianna. But the filing does not repeat the most serious misconduct allegation, made by Vance himself in open court: He claimed to have been threatened at gunpoint by police. Vance made the claim in a June 16 court appearance after prosecutors told the judge Vance had voluntarily "confessed" three times.
"That was under extreme pressure. I had a gun in my face," Vance said at the time without elaborating.
Attorney Katherine Streett declined to comment Friday on why Vance's defense team didn't address his claim of duress in their motion. She said she has a regular practice of not talking about ongoing cases.
The defense has filed 50 motions in the case so far, with 13 of those in the past month. Almost all of them will be up for consideration at the Oct. 6 hearing.
The six-page motion, prepared by co-counsel Teri Chambers, reflects previous complaints by the defense about police questioning of Vance, but also seeks to have the judge throw out the results of a search of Vance's home and the original DNA sample he gave authorities, which led to his arrest the next day for Pressly's slaying. Vance is also charged with rape, residential burglary and theft in the case. In Lee County, he's accused in the April 2008 rape of a school teacher, an allegation Pulaski County prosecutors hope to use against him at trial.
Vance has given at least five statements to police, according to the defense filing: on Nov. 25 in Marianna, the date he also submitted to a cheek swab for DNA; Nov. 26, the date of his arrest; Nov. 27, over the rape accusation from Marianna; and on Dec. 10 and Feb. 24.
Little Rock detectives wouldn't allow the defense attorneys to participate in the December and February meetings, which police claim were initiated by Vance after he had waived the right to have his attorneys present. Those interviews were the source of a March hearing after the defense argued they were illegal, and future meetings between police and Vance should be prohibited or investigators should at least be required to allow his defense to attend. The judge refused, saying as long as police respected Vance's rights, the defendant could talk to whomever he chose.
The latest defense challenge takes a new tack on the December and February meetings, arguing they were in violation of a lower court order requiring police to notify Vance's attorneys with two hours notice any time he was to be taken from the jail. The Dec. 2 order was issued by Little Rock District Court Judge Lee Munson on the same day Vance's defenders filed a notice with the court that Vance was asserting his Constitutional rights against speaking with authorities, the filing states. The motion also complains that police should've notified Vance his attorneys were trying to contact him during the December interview.
The results of those interviews, one of which was "hours" long, should be thrown out, the defense argues.
Front Section, Pages 1, 2 on 09/28/2009