Incriminating statements accused murderer Rickey Dale Newman made to police after his 2001 arrest will not be admissible in his retrial, a judge has ruled.
Crawford County Circuit Judge Gary Cottrell on Monday granted Newman's motion to suppress statements he made March 1 and March 7, 2001, ruling that Newman was mentally incompetent when he made them.
Cottrell also wrote in his order that letters Newman wrote to Cottrell and Prosecuting Attorney Marc McCune and two other statements he made to police were being withdrawn by the prosecution.
"The court holding is that, based on Mr. Newman's condition at the time he made those statements, he suffered a mental disease and mental deficits wherein he could not give a knowing or voluntary consent or statement because of that mental condition," Cottrell wrote.
He also wrote that the interrogation that led to Newman making the statements was not reasonable given his mental condition.
Newman, 59, has been in custody since his arrest in February 2001 and is scheduled to go on trial Feb. 6 or 13 in Van Buren Circuit Court, according to court records.
He is charged with first-degree murder in the Feb. 7, 2001, murder and mutilation of 46-year-old Marie Cholette at a transient camp on the west edge of Van Buren. Special prosecutor Ron Fields of Fort Smith amended the charge last month from capital murder after dropping the death penalty as a punishment option.
A security video showed Cholette and Newman leaving a Fort Smith liquor store where they had purchased wine and cigarettes. Police say Newman was the last person to be seen with Cholette.
Newman's attorney, Julie Brain of Philadelphia, initially filed the suppression motion Sept. 26, 2014, to disallow the statements Newman gave to police. She claimed that detectives took advantage of Newman's mental condition to coerce him into confessing to Cholette's murder even though Newman told police he didn't remember killing her.
In his response, Fields argued that Newman appeared to understand his rights to remain silent and exhibited in his statements that he knew he did not have to answer detectives' questions. He even initiated the discussion in one statement, Field wrote.
Newman gave a statement shortly after his arrest in which he denied killing Cholette, which Brain did not challenge, Fields wrote.
Fields also noted that the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled in February 2014 that Newman was not competent at the time of his 2002 trial, but the ruling did not mean he was not competent when he gave statements to detectives in March 2001.
Attorneys argued the motion before Cottrell in at least three hearing sessions spread over nearly 21/2 years. Hearings on the motion were set and then called off during that time as other issues in the case cropped up.
Several delays were caused when Newman underwent multiple mental evaluations to fulfill the high court's order for Cottrell to render Newman mentally competent so he could be retried on the capital murder charge originally filed against him.
The court threw out Newman's June 2002 conviction and death sentence.
Cottrell declared Newman mentally fit to stand trial in November 2015.
The case also was delayed when Brain tried to get Newman's charges dismissed for failing to retry Newman from the time the state Supreme Court issued its ruling to November 2015 in violation of his right to a speedy trial.
Cottrell denied the motion, and Brain appealed to the state Supreme Court. The court rejected the appeal request in December.
Brain filed a second motion Nov. 4 to dismiss for violation of Newman's right to a speedy trial, citing the time between Cottrell's finding Newman competent and the day she filed the motion.
Cottrell has not ruled on that motion, according to court records.
State Desk on 01/25/2017