Resentencing set for ’06 killer of 3

— A Sebastian County Circuit Court jury was seated Thursday to decide if convicted triplemurderer James Aaron Miller should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

Jury selection was expected to take two days but was completed Thursday with the seating of eight women and four men, along with and two male alternates.

Beginning Tuesday, attorneys will present all the evidence in the case, calling witnesses and introducing exhibits like that in Miller’s April 2008 trial. But jurors will not have to decide Miller’s guilt or innocence, only the sentence, Circuit Judge James O. Cox told potential jurors at the start of Thursday’s session.

Miller, 34, was convicted of three counts of capital murder in 2008 for the strangulation deaths of girlfriend Bridgette Barr, 28, andher two children - daughter Sydney, 5, and son Garrett, 2.

Police found the decomposing bodies of the mother and daughter under a com-forter in the master bedroom of the apartment that Miller and Barr shared on Dec. 26, 2006, court records show. Medical examiners said Barr had been dead as long as three days.

Garrett’s body was found in a bathtub. Police said the boy’s body had different degrees of burning after being placed in a hot oven after his death.

Miller, with close-cropped hair and dressed in a blue shirt and khaki slacks, sat at the defense table with attorneys James Wyatt and Dale Adams during Thursday’s court session. As in his first trial almost three years earlier, he sat with his head down, seemingly oblivious to the activities around him.

The original trial ended with Miller being convicted and sentenced to death. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in January 2010 but threw out the death penalty and ordered another sentencing trial.

Associate Justice Donald L. Corbin wrote in the high court’s opinion that Cox erred in allowing Barr’s ex-husband and mother to say in victimimpact statements to the jury during the penalty phase that Miller should receive thedeath penalty. Such statements, Corbin wrote, violated his Eighth Amendment rights against being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

“Family members of the victims may testify about the victim and the emotional impact of the victim’s death on the family; however, they may not state ‘characterizations and opinions about the crime, the defendant and the appropriate sentence,’” Corbin wrote, quoting a passage from Payne v. Tennessee in 1991.

Jury selection actually began months ago when a pool of nearly 200 completed questionnaires that were reviewed by attorneys for both sides. Court administrator Denora Coomer said the initial list of potential jurors was reduced to about 130.

The questionnaires were accompanied by an order from Cox that explained the unusual trial format and provided information and instructions about the case.

The order stated that Miller was convicted of three counts of capital murder. Cox named the victims, told jurors they would be deciding Miller’s punishment only and that their choices were between death and life in prison without parole.

Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue asked potential jurors Thursday whether they couldlisten to the evidence and follow Cox’s instructions on applying the law.

Shue told jurors they would have to decide if the state proved aggravating circumstances, those justifying the death sentence, beyond a reasonable doubt; whether those aggravating circumstances outweighed mitigating factors, or those lessening the justification for death; and whether the aggravating circumstances justified the death penalty.

He also told jurors that if they decided on the death penalty, each would have to sign the verdict forms.

Attorneys for Miller displayed a poster titled “Death Penalty Chart” with spaced lines numbered 1 to 10, with 10 being most in favor of the death penalty and 1 being the least.

Using the chart, they asked jurors to rate their feelings for the death penalty and to explain their ratings. Most said they were around the middle of the chart but on the side favoring the death penalty. One man told Miller’s attorneys they would have to talk him out of voting for death.

Given that Miller already had been convicted of three capital murder counts, jurors, when asked, said mental illness or some flaw in his character could cause them to vote for life in prison instead of death.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/18/2011

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