FORT SMITH — A Sebastian County Circuit Court jury was deliberating Friday evening whether convicted triple-murderer James Aaron Miller should be sentenced to death or life in prison.
The jury of eight women and four men began deliberating at 6:36 p.m. after hearing four days of testimony and an hour of arguments by attorneys in the case. As of late Friday night, the jury had not reached a verdict.
“You are the conscience of this community,” Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue said.“Today, you say what is right and wrong in Fort Smith.”
Miller, 35, was convicted in April 2008 of three counts of capital murder in the strangulation deathsof his 28-year-old girlfriend Bridgette Barr, and her children 5-year-old Sydney and 2-year-old Garrett. A jury at that time sentenced Miller to death.
On appeal in 2009, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Miller resentenced afterruling Circuit Judge James O. Cox erred by allowing Barr’s relatives to tell jurors as part of their victim-impact statements they thought Miller should get the death penalty.
Miller’s attorneys called psychiatrists and psychologists during the trial who testified that Miller was mentally retarded, that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and brain damage.
In his closing argument, defense attorney James Wyatt told jurors the things Miller did before, during and after the deaths were not normal. He referred to the manner in which the deaths were committed and that he stayed in their apartment for three days with the dead bodies.
“I don’t think we should kill mentally ill people in this country,” Wyatt told jurors as he laid a hand on Miller’s shoulder. “I ask you please, go back [to the jury room] and send Aaron Miller to prison for the rest of his life.”
During his closing arguments, Shue said the ultimate punishment should be reserved for the ultimate crime.
“Can a man kill three people, two of them young children, and not be subject to the ultimate penalty,” he said.
The state rebutted the defense experts with its own experts who testified that Miller was not mentally ill or retarded and, at times, tried to fake mental illness in the psychological tests he took.
Shue recounted testimony of the measures Miller took to hide the murders, like moving a rug over a blood stain in the apartment and opening a can of paint to mask the smell of decomposition that neighbors said they began to detect shortly after the murders.
When he reminded jurors that Miller had demonstrated to Fort Smith police investigators how he killed Barr, Shue asked, “How can you have a doubt with that” evidence?
Cox instructed jurors to weigh aggravating circumstances against mitigating circumstances to reach a sentence.
Cox told jurors that if they determined that Miller was mentally retarded, their deliberations would end and Miller would be sentenced to life in prison.
Aggravating circumstances included whether Miller committed the murders in an especially cruel or depraved manner, whether the victims were vulnerable and younger than 12 and whether he had committed a prior felony involving violence.
Included in a long list of possible mitigating circumstances, jurors were to consider whether Miller was under extreme mental or emotional distress at the time of the killings, whether he was mentally retarded, whether he suffered from a learning disorder as a child, that he cooperated with authorities by confessing to the killings, and that he was given up for adoption by his biological father at the age of 3 or 4.
Other possible mitigating circumstances in the list included Miller’s sub-average intelligence, the difficulties he had growing up and the efforts he made to lead a good life before and after his murder convictions.
Shue encouraged jurors to look for mitigating factors but said “the truth is the state proved this man is a monster.”
“From the grave, they look to you for justice,” Shue said. “From the grave, they look to you for the right decision.
“You need to sentence Aaron Miller to death.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/26/2011