VAN BUREN -- A psychologist testified Friday that Rickey Dale Newman did not need to be restored to mental fitness to stand trial on a capital murder charge because he is not mentally ill.
The opinion, by State Hospital clinical psychologist Mark Peacock, appeared to concern Crawford County Circuit Judge Gary Cottrell, who explained to Peacock that the Arkansas Supreme Court had ruled that Newman was mentally ill, and Peacock had to show evidence of how Newman has been restored to mental fitness to assist his attorney in preparing for his retrial.
Cottrell did not issue a ruling Friday, saying he would wait until he received additional reports.
The give-and-take came during a hearing Friday over whether Newman, 58, is fit to stand trial again on a capital murder charge and to aid his attorney, Julie Brain of Philadelphia, in preparing his case.
The state Supreme Court ruled in January 2014 that Cottrell had erred in 2011 in denying a new trial for Newman on the grounds that he was mentally unfit to assist his attorney in the preparation of his 2002 trial, during which he was convicted and sentenced to death.
The court threw out the conviction and death sentence and sent the case back to Cottrell to restore Newman to competence so he could be retried.
Newman was convicted in the February 2001 mutilation slaying of 46-year-old Marie Cholette at a transient camp on the edge of Van Buren. During the one-day trial, in which he acted as his own attorney, he testified that he killed Cholette and asked the jury to sentence him to death.
He was successful in waiving his appeals, but days before his scheduled execution in July 2005, he asked for a stay of execution and that his appeals be restarted.
In making its 2014 ruling, the court sided with a psychiatrist and a psychologist brought in by Brain who concluded that Newman suffered from mental disease or defect that interfered with his ability to assist his attorney in preparing for his trial.
After reviewing all the records on Newman that went before the court and his observations of Newman for four hours in May, Peacock said Friday that, contrary to the state Supreme Court's opinion, he did not believe Newman suffered from a mental disease or defect but from a personality disorder. This would mean there was no need to restore him to fitness.
The only change between 2011 and the present in Newman's ability to assist in his defense, Peacock said, was Brain's intensive effort to acquaint him with the trial process and the defense strategy.
He said Newman suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from a horrific childhood and a personality disorder. In periods of stress, those and other conditions combine to sometimes cause him to act irrationally, but he would recover when relieved of the stress.
In Peacock's interview of Newman in May at the State Hospital, he said Newman refused to cooperate in the evaluation at Brain's direction. That in itself, he said, showed he was able to work with his attorney in following some strategy in the case.
Newman also was able to talk about testing the strength of evidence in the case, the value of witness statements and could refer to relevant documents in the case, Peacock said.
While Peacock held that Newman was mentally competent, attorneys and Cottrell asked him to explain instances of bizarre behavior by Newman, such as his carving into his forearm the initials JB and his letters to Cottrell professing his innocence in Cholette's murder but asking him to reinstate death as a penalty option in the case.
Special prosecutor Ron Fields informed Cottrell earlier this year that he would not seek the death penalty against Newman.
On the mutilation, Peacock speculated it could be a means to draw attention. Also, he said, Brain probably is the only person he's had a lasting relationship with, and he might have developed feelings for her.
The letters asking for the death penalty probably could be explained as a release of tension or frustration, or for attention, he said. Peacock added that Newman's abusive childhood, the trauma he experienced throughout his life and no prospects for the future may have led to a desire for the peace of death.
NW News on 09/19/2015