Murderer Anderson's ineffective council argument rejected

FILE PHOTO Ricky Anderson walks into Judge Ray Reynolds courtroom for his July 2009 arraignment at the Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville.
FILE PHOTO Ricky Anderson walks into Judge Ray Reynolds courtroom for his July 2009 arraignment at the Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville.

The Arkansas Supreme Court agreed Thursday with a lower court judge that convicted murderer Ricky Ray Anderson had effective attorneys when he was found guilty of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death in her Fayetteville apartment.

Anderson was convicted in a September 2010 trial.

He appealed his conviction and claimed his former attorneys, Cristi Beaumont and Ray Niblock, didn't keep him adequately informed and failed to interview witnesses who could have testified about his mental state at the time of Jill Lynn Ulmer's murder.

Circuit Judge William Storey rejected Anderson's arguments. Anderson contended in his appeal to the state's high court that Storey should have appointed him a lawyer for his appeal, failed to provide an adequate order rejecting his arguments and failed to find effective counsel.

The Supreme Court affirmed Storey's ruling Thursday. Justices said the only relevant issue Anderson raised was that of ineffective counsel, and he failed to show the performance of his lawyers was deficient or that a deficient performance prejudiced his defense.

"(Anderson) received the most favorable outcome possible at trial regarding punishment, in that, after (Anderson) had been found guilty of capital murder, he was not sentenced to the harsher of the two punishments," the justices wrote.

Capital murder is punishable by either life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.

Ulmer was found with multiple stab wounds in her Fayetteville apartment June 26, 2009, just minutes after she called 911 to tell police Anderson was in the parking lot and walking toward her home. Ulmer had a restraining order against Anderson.

Anderson was inside the apartment stabbing Ulmer when officers arrived. She was stabbed at least 27 times and a major artery deep in her abdomen was cut.

Two Fayetteville police officers were unable to break through the apartment's locked door. They broke a window and shot at Anderson as he stabbed Ulmer with a butcher knife. The shots missed Anderson, but one bullet ricocheted off a couch and hit Ulmer.

Medical examiners said both the stab wounds and the gunshot contributed to Ulmer's death and either would have been fatal. After the trial, Ulmer's father said the family did not fault officers for her death.

The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Anderson's murder conviction in November 2011.

NW News on 01/23/2015

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