FAYETTEVILLE -- Heather Carlene Swain received adequate legal representation and her life without parole sentence wasn't disproportionate to her role in the killing of Ronnie Lee Bradley, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Swain had asked her accomplice to capital murder conviction in Washington County Circuit Court be set aside.
Legal lingo
Rule 37 Petition
A petition for postconviction relief based upon Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37, which typically argues that a defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. The petition is aimed at showing trial counsel failed to do his job properly. A petitioner must convince the court that if they’d had proper representation they might not have been convicted.
Source: Arkansas Criminal Appeals Blog
"Swain was not a credible witness. Her testimony was not corroborated to any material degree by other evidence or the record," Circuit Judge Mark Lindsay wrote in his opinion. "She was obviously biased by her stake in the outcome."
Lindsay noted the evidence supported the sentence imposed and is within the sentencing range set by the Arkansas Legislature.
Lindsay found Swain also failed to show medications she was taking before her trial left her mentally incapable of considering plea bargains.
Swain had two mental examinations and both found her fit to stand trial.
Bill James, who represented Swain at trial, testified during a hearing last week that prosecutors didn't tender a plea offer to Swain, but he talked with her about making an offer to the prosecution.
James said then-Prosecutor John Threet expected plea offers to come from the defense. James said he asked several times for Swain's approval to make a plea offer, but she wasn't interested in anything less than probation even as he explained the possible consequences of going to trial could include life without parole.
"She never accepted it. She was definitely made aware of it," James said. "I felt comfortable I was presenting it in a way she could understand, but she just didn't like what she was hearing. She never gave me permission to go forward with anything."
A Washington County Circuit Court jury convicted Swain, 38, in January 2014 of being an accomplice to capital murder and kidnapping. She received a mandatory life term without the possibility of parole on the murder charge and an additional 25 years on the kidnapping charge.
Bradley, 48, was severely beaten and strangled. His body was found dumped Dec. 27, 2012, in a driveway in rural southwest Washington County.
Prosecutors said Swain, James Patton, Timothy Swinford and Anthony Allen Swinford drove around rural areas of the county in her car for eight hours while Bradley was repeatedly beaten, primarily by Anthony Swinford, but also by the others.
The Swinford brothers and Patton avoided the death penalty or life in prison by pleading guilty.
The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Swain's conviction and life sentence on appeal.
Swain is being held at the McPherson Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction near Newport.
NW News on 06/09/2016