Judge tosses 90-year-old’s murder count

Mansfield man’s dementia cited; wife’s throat cut in ’07

FORT SMITH - A circuit court judge Wednesday dismissed the 6-yearold murder case targeting a 90-year-old man in the throat-slashing death of his wife, who was nearly decapitated, because the man is too senile to assist in his defense.

In dismissing the first-degree murder charge against Autry Basham, Sebastian County Circuit Judge James Cox said he was not entering a judgment in the case, only ruling that Basham was unable to proceed to trial.

Cox made his ruling in response to a motion from Basham’s attorney, Kent Mc-Lemore of Fayetteville, who cited medical and psychiatricreports that Basham suffered from dementia, Alzheimer’s type, in asking Cox to dismiss the charge. McLemore said that Basham’s mental condition had deteriorated and would worsen.

“I can’t defend a murder case at trial without assistance from my client,” Mc-Lemore said during a brief status hearing in the case.

Deputy prosecutor Aaron Jennen told Cox that the state agreed with the psychiatric findings in the reports and did not object to Mc-Lemore’s motion to dismiss.

Jennen said the state’s only concern is that Basham might try to harm himself. Basham had made statements, recounted in mentalevaluations in the past, about wanting to end his life. Cox subsequently ordered caretakers to remove all weapons or possible weapons, including kitchen knives, from Basham’s apartment. He also ordered that Basham be kept under close supervision.

Cox also expressed the concern to McLemore during Wednesday’s hearing. Cox said Basham had been able to carry on well free on bond over the past six years because of the conditions the court set for him.

McLemore said that once Cox dismissed the charge, Basham would be free from all orders and controls of the court. He added, though, that Basham’s family and caretakers had an interest in keeping Basham safe whether there was a court case or not.

Basham was charged in the death of his 83-year-old wife of 64 years, Marie, on Aug. 27, 2007, after her throat was cut with a steak knife at their home in Mansfield. The medical examiner testified at his trial that the cut was so deep, it nearly decapitated Marie Basham.

After calling one of his sons to tell him about the killing, Basham turned the knife on himself and cut his own throat.

He went to trial on the first-degree-murder charge in October 2008. After a week of testimony, the jury could not reach a verdict, leading to a mistrial.

Basham has never been retried on the charge. McLemore petitioned Cox in 2010 to dismiss the first-degree-murder charge as double jeopardy on the grounds that jurors in the 2008 trial had deadlocked on convicting Basham of second-degree murder, implying that they had acquitted him of first-degree murder.

Cox denied McLemore’s motion, ruling that the jury could not make an implicit acquittal. The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed Cox’s ruling in May 2011.

McLemore appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court rejected the request to hear the appeal but agreed to hear a similar case from Pulaski County Circuit Court, Alex Blueford v. Arkansas.

In that case, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 24, 2012, decision, a jury had voted unanimously against guilt on capital- and first-degree-murder charges but was deadlocked on a manslaughter charge. A mistrial was declared, and Blueford’s attorney argued on appeal that trying him again for capital murder or first-degree murder constituted double jeopardy.

In a 6-3 decision, the high court ruled the trial jury had not made a final decision and there was nothing to stop it from going back and reconsidering its earlier votes.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/27/2013

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