The state wants to put Robert Canada away for life for capital murder.
But there was a problem with the paperwork.
In a case on appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court, state attorneys want justices to undo a 2015 ruling by Crittenden County Circuit Judge Ralph Wilson, who dismissed a 2000 capital murder case against Canada because it took investigators nearly 15 years -- most of which Canada spent in lockup for other crimes-- to serve him with a murder warrant.
The problem, according to Canada's attorney, Bernard Butler, was that law enforcement failed to follow through on the proper process of serving Canada with his murder warrant or of filing official charges.
West Memphis investigators believed that Canada was involved in the murder -- he'd confessed twice to investigators, according to court records -- but they never used the state or national criminal database to note that Canada was wanted in a murder.
"He was put at a disadvantage by not knowing [he was wanted for murder]. That for four years of being out and about, and having no idea there was a warrant out," said Butler, a Jonesboro attorney. "It's one of those [situations] where we gotta look down the road. If they say they can hold a warrant for 14 years and not do something. ... Well, there are some prosecutors who are just knuckleheads and might intentionally do something like that."
The case dates back to a robbery call in West Memphis 16 years ago.
On May 31, 2000, officers went to a call on West Broadway at the Price Communication Center, a phone and pager store, where they found the owner, 22-year-old Derrick Price, dead.
Investigators were eventually led to Canada, who they said confessed to being an accomplice to Bernard Johnson in Price's slaying, according to court records and testimony.
By August 2000, investigators got murder arrest warrants for both men, who were being held in jails in Tennessee after their arrests for a June 2000 robbery in which a clerk was beaten.
According to testimony, West Memphis investigators were told that the men would remain in Tennessee custody, so investigators faxed copies of the warrants to numerous Tennessee law enforcement agencies.
The West Memphis detectives also requested that a "detainer" be put on the men so that they would not be released without the detectives' knowledge.
But according to court records, those detainers were never placed and the warrants were never served, an omission that West Memphis police officials blamed on their peers in Tennessee.
Canada pleaded guilty to the Tennessee robbery in September 2001 and received a 15-year sentence. He was released from prison in November 2011 and he returned to Arkansas.
(Johnson escaped custody in Tennessee and was arrested in Florida on an aggravated robbery charge. He remains incarcerated there, and as of Friday, Arkansas authorities have not requested that a hold be put on him for Price's murder).
After his return to Arkansas, Canada had several contacts with other law enforcement officers, according to court records, ranging from an arrest for forgery to checking in with parole officers to helping investigators vindicate law enforcement in the death of 21-year-old Chavis Carter, who shot himself while in the back of a Jonesboro police car.
In all of that time, according to court records, other law enforcement agencies didn't know West Memphis wanted Canada for murder because there was no mention of it in state or national criminal databases and no official criminal charge filed with a circuit court.
Canada was arrested by Marion police and charged with commercial burglary in Crittenden County on June 17, 2014. The next day, he was served with the murder warrant by West Memphis investigators. His official charge, often referred to as a "criminal information," was then filed.
Although there is no statute of limitations for capital murder prosecutions, Canada's attorney contends the state took too long to serve a warrant, thus violating his due process rights.
Attorneys with the state argue that Canada demonstrated no bias by the state or harm to his defense by the delay; they also said he had twice admitted to his role in Price's killing.
At a hearing in circuit court, Butler argued that the delay in the service of the warrant -- and Canada's languishing in prison for 10 years without being notified he could expect prosecution with a potential life sentence -- violated the offender's rights to due process.
Ken Gallant, a University of Arkansas at Little Rock law school professor, said Canada's case is odd but that similar cases pop up across the country, although not often involving a capital murder charge.
"There's all sorts of bureaucratic cracks that things can fall through. I don't think that the judge used [the term] 'bureaucratic cracks' but that's effectively, I think, what he meant," Gallant said. " That's really what's going on."
Gallant said he wasn't trying to apologize for law enforcement, but essentially, people are human.
"The answer is, when you do what you think is right, a lot of times, you make an assumption, I make an assumption, that it got where it was going and the other people did their part," Gallant said. "And I think that's how balls get dropped in many places in life. I think we've all done that sort of thing."
Butler said, "By not filing, he was prejudiced. [There is] no reason to justify the state's action. ... Theoretically, [Canada] could have worked out a different deal or negotiated [following his 2012 arrest]. ... I mean, he did not know he had this is over his head."
The prosecutor in Canada's case, Matt Coe, argued in circuit court that there was no malice or intent behind the delay in what Wilson, the judge, called a "stale" warrant.
If Canada's rights to due process were violated, Coe argued, the burden fell on Canada to show that the more than a decade delay in being served a warrant biased his defense.
Coe did not return a call for comment Friday. He has declined to discuss the case in the past.
Under Arkansas' Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act, offenders who are held in other states and face charges in Arkansas have a right to ask to appear in an Arkansas court within 180 days of being served with a notice of their charges.
The law exists, Butler said, to ensure that offenders can stand trial, and if necessary, serve time concurrently instead of letting charges be "stacked" against them.
But without being given notice of his charge while serving time in Tennessee, Canada was robbed of that right, Butler argued. Butler also argued that of the many witnesses interviewed by police, it was unclear how many were still around to be called to testify in court.
During a September 2015 hearing, Wilson sided with Canada, calling the delay in his arrest for murder an "extreme lapse" and one that violated Canada's rights under state and federal constitutions:
"I'm not faulting the State intentionally but I think there is prejudice to Mr. Canada by not invoking the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act," Wilson said. "And if this goes up on appeal, it appears that he might have some defense witness [availability] issues, too."
On appeal, attorneys with the state attorney general's office argued that Wilson's ruling was wrong and that Canada didn't meet the burden of proof showing that the delay was either intentional or it prejudiced his defense.
"The state's unintentional delay in arresting [Canada] only resulted in giving him the opportunity to commit several more crimes that required imprisonment -- crimes that would not have happened had he been incarcerated. There is simply no merit to the [argument] that the state gained any sort of tactical advantage by delaying the arrest or that it did so to 'stack' his time," state attorneys argued. "The circuit court said it did not want to fault the State and opined that the State was simply careless but then, nevertheless, held that against the state by letting a confessed capital murderer go free."
While the case is on appeal, Canada remains in prison in Missouri, where he is serving a five-year sentence for felony theft.
Metro on 07/05/2016