A black Oklahoma man convicted in the June 2005 murders of two women in De Queen did not receive adequate legal representation because his attorney failed to object to the trial being moved to a more predominantly white county, his new attorney told the Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday.
Texarkana attorney Jeff Harrelson told the court that Mickey Thomas’ trial attorney should have objected to the transfer from Sevier County to Pike County because fewer blacks lived there. Thomas is seeking a new trial.
In Sevier County, 4.6 percent of the population is black; only 3.3 percent of Pike County residents are black, according to estimates for 2012 from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Harrelson also said jurors may have inferred that Thomas had intended to sexually assault the victims because he had a condom and twine with him when arrested. But during a pretrial hearing, a police officer had said that there was no evidence that Thomas planned or attempted to sexually assault anyone. Harrelson said the original defense attorney should have introduced that testimony and “snuffed out any [such] inference …”
Thomas was convicted of two counts of capital murder and sentenced to death in the murders of Mona Shelton, 46, and Donna Cary, 45, at the Cornerstone Monument Co. store in De Queen. Shelton owned the business, and Cary was a customer.
Police found the bodies of the two women inside the building June 14, 2005. Both women had been shot in the head, and Shelton had also been beaten.
An Arkansas State Police trooper located a car described by witnesses as being at the scene and followed it across the state line into Oklahoma, where Thomas, who is from Broken Bow, Okla., was arrested.
At trial, Thomas’ attorneys asked for the case to be moved because publicity from the killings would prevent him from receiving a fair trial. Sevier County Circuit Judge Charles Yeargan chose to move the case to Pike County.
The attorney general’s office wrote in filings with the court that the racial disparity between the counties at the time of the trial was less than 1 percent and closer than other counties mentioned by the defense, including Howard and Miller counties, which both had more than 20 percent black populations.
“[Thomas’] claim appears also to include the argument that had his counsel properly preserved the racial-disparity argument, he would then have been able on appeal to argue that there was systematic exclusion of specific racial groups from the jury selection,” Assistant Attorney General Nicana Sherman wrote.
Assistant Attorney General Karen Wallace told the court that it also appeared to be the defense’s trial strategy to not address the condom and twine in Thomas’ pocket when he was arrested, which she said was “smart” to not bring up.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 03/14/2014