A “rogue juror” sparked an unusual and unexpected mistrial in an aggravated-robbery case Friday when, after arriving at Pulaski County Circuit Court an hour late, she excused herself from the second day of deliberations in a letter that said her son had been a victim of a similar crime, which made it impossible for her to be impartial.
After already dismissing one juror and seating the only alternate during arguments in the case, Judge Herbert Wright had no choice but to schedule a new trial for Milton Parker, 23, of Sherwood, who is accused of demanding a bag of cash from a man outside an Arvest Bank branch on Nov. 12, 2012, and shooting him twice in the leg.
After dismissing the rest of the jury - which had deliberated until 9:15 p.m. Thursday after a full day of testimony - Wright sternly told Helen Lewis-Holmes that she should have mentioned her son’s robbery case during voir dire, or jury selection, Thursday morning, when attorneys had dismissed several other prospective jurors who said they had connections to robberies or thefts. He also reprimanded her for arriving in court late with no notice.
Wright held Lewis-Holmes in contempt of court and ordered her to return Tuesday. He advised her to hire an attorney.
“We just had a rogue juror who messed up the process,” Wright told attorneys afterward, adding that he plans to reschedule the trial in a brief hearing Tuesday.
Some jurors gathered outside the courthouse Friday said 11 of them were prepared to find Parker guilty Thursday night, but Lewis-Holmes could not make a decision, causing the foreman to seek a second day for deliberations.
In the letter that Lewis-Holmes gave to the foreman Friday, she asked Wright and fellow jurors to “forgiveme, for not saying anything yesterday.
“I really thought in my heart and mind that I could remain impartial but it made me sick just to hear the victim of this case repeat what happened to him. Forgive me, forgive me, please forgive me,” she said.
Lewis-Holmes, who said her son had a court hearing Friday related to the robbery in which he was a victim, told Wright she was late to court because she was taking her husband to a nonemergency medical appointment.
The victim in the case, Mohamed Eid, appeared disappointed by the lack of resolution after Friday’s mistrial. Eid had testified that he was shot in the leg twice outside the Arvest Bank at 16107 Chenal Parkway on Veterans Day in 2012 by a man in a hooded sweatshirt who ran toward him as Eid exited his car, pointing a gun at hischest and yelling, “Give me the money, you MF! Give me the money, you MF! I’m going to kill you. I’m going to shoot you.”
Eid gave the man the money, he said, and the man shot him anyway.
After the shooting, Little Rock police tracked the white car seen fleeing the scene back to the nearby Fountains at Chenal Apartments, where they found Parker and another man, Jontai Gatewood, hiding in the apartment that Parker shared with his girlfriend, according to reports.
Eid told prosecutors that he was “100 percent sure” that the man who shot him was Parker. The owner of several gas stations, Eid routinely views surveillance footage after robberies at his businesses, and he is used to studying and remembering appearances, he told Prosecuting Attorney Barbara Mariani.
“If I see somebody one time, I will never forget his face,” Eid said, adding that Parker later made eye contact with him at a pretrial hearing and made a slashing motionacross his throat.
But defense attorney Willard Proctor Jr. argued that Eid’s memory was influenced by media accounts of Parker’s arrest, which happened while Eid was recovering in a Little Rock hospital.
“If it bleeds, it leads,” Proctor told jurors after asserting that Eid likely saw Parker’s photograph on a television in his hospital room after Parker’s arrest. Eid had denied seeing any news accounts of the arrest.
Eid initially identified Parker in a photo lineup 16 days after the shooting, too late to be totally certain of his assailant, Proctor said. Details of Eid’s account of the gunman - that he was carrying a silver gun and wearing a white sweatshirt - differed from those of witnesses, who said the shooter was carrying a black gun and wearing a black sweatshirt, Proctor said.
Police never found the assailants’ clothes, the money or the gun. Gatewood - who testified as part of an agreement under which he pleaded guilty to robbery instead of his initial charge of aggravated robbery - said Parker likely tossed the gun into a wooded area near the apartments before police arrived.
However, Parker testified that on the day of the robbery, Gatewood had borrowed Parker’s girlfriend’s white car, and Parker had stayed at the apartment. Parker said he and Gatewood ran into the apartment after Gatewood’s return and Gatewood told Parker that he had robbed a man.
In her closing arguments, Mariani disputed Parker’s testimony and called him “a menace to society,” urging jurors to swiftly convict him.
Lewis-Holmes wrote that she entered deliberations shaken by an unexpected sense that she couldn’t remain impartial.
“I am withdrawing myself from the jury due to a previous life encounter with my son, Antonio. My son was shot at his work place (PizzaHut),” even after he gave the robber the money he had demanded, she wrote.
Contacted at work Friday afternoon, Lewis-Holmes confirmed that her son was Antonio Mitchell, who was robbed while working at a Pizza Hut at 301 N. Shackleford Road in June 2011.
The gunman forced, Mitchell, then 34, to the back of the restaurant and made him open the safe, police reports said. When officers arrived, they found Mitchell shot in the lower back.
Court dockets show that Mitchell was scheduled to appear Friday before Circuit Judge Joyce Warren for a hearing related to child support.
There was no hearing scheduled Friday in the robbery-related lawsuit that Mitchell filed against the property managers of the Pizza Hut building, and police have not made an arrest in that case.
During jury selection, Proctor and Mariani asked jurors about their experiences with the justice system, if they had been victims of crimes and if there was anything else that may compromise their impartiality. Lewis-Holmes did not mention her son’s robbery experience in response to any of those questions.
In preparation for her contempt-of-court hearing Tuesday, Wright requested a transcript of jury selection from the court clerk.
Parker will be retried on charges of aggravated robbery, first-degree battery, theft of property and possession of a firearm by a felon.
If convicted, he also faces sentencing enhancements for committing a felony with a firearm and for being convicted of a crime after previously being charged with four or more felonies.
Court records show that Parker was sentenced in 2010 to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to commercial burglary. He was later released on parole.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 16 on 09/29/2013