Death-penalty waiver sought

Mutilation case’s prosecutor files motion in Circuit Court

The special prosecutor in Rickey Dale Newman's capital murder case wants to waive the death penalty, according to Crawford County Circuit Court records.

Attorney Ron Fields of Fort Smith filed the motion Tuesday with Circuit Judge Gary Cottrell.

"Previous court rulings found that the defendant is mentally impaired to the extent that under existing law from the United States Supreme Court and the Arkansas Supreme Court, he is not an appropriate candidate for execution," Fields wrote in the one-page motion.

Capital murder is the only offense for which the death penalty is an option in Arkansas. The only other punishment for a capital murder conviction is life in prison without parole.

Newman, 57, is awaiting retrial in Crawford County in the Feb. 7, 2001, mutilation death of Marie Elaine Cholette, 46, at a transient camp on the western outskirts of Van Buren.

Newman was sentenced to death after a one-day jury trial in June 2002, during which he testified that he killed Cholette, and asked the jury for the death penalty.

After his conviction, Newman successfully waived his appeals and asked to be put to death. Four days before his scheduled July 26, 2005, execution, he allowed federal public defenders -- including his current attorney, Julie Brain -- to intercede for him, request a stay of execution and renew his appeals.

In January 2014, the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Newman, ruling that he was not mentally competent to assist his attorney in preparing for the 2002 trial.

Cottrell ordered Newman to undergo mental evaluations upon his return to Crawford County, telling attorneys he had to know whether Newman now was competent to stand trial and, if not, to order treatment to restore his fitness to proceed.

Newman has not cooperated in those evaluations at Brain's direction. She contends that Newman is mentally competent and that an evaluation would violate her client's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by an involuntary evaluation, and his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial since Cottrell said he could not put Newman on trial again until he has a determination that Newman was competent.

Earlier this month, Cottrell called off Newman's trial scheduled for April 6.

Brain wrote in a March 18 brief that she would consent to Newman being tested as long as no statements he made during the evaluation were used in the case against him.

Fields filed a response Tuesday to Brain's assertion of her client's fitness. He wrote that he agreed with Cottrell that Newman should be evaluated at the State Hospital and that he be treated until he is restored to mental fitness.

He wrote that Newman continued to write letters to the judge and Fields in his own defense and without his attorney's knowledge.

Fields noted that defense experts and the Arkansas Supreme Court took Newman's letter writing into account when determining that he was not fit to assist his attorney in preparing for his trial in 2002.

NW News on 03/27/2015

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