The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied Dr. Arnold Smith’s attempt to get bail.
A three-justice panel filed its one-page decision Thursday without giving any reasoning.
The Greenwood oncologist has been held at the Leflore County Jail since April 29 on charges of plotting to kill attorney Lee Abraham. A grand jury is set to convene in August and will most likely decide whether to indict Smith and three others charged as part of the alleged murder-for-hire scheme — Derrick Lacy, Cordarious Robinson and Paul Muller, all of whom have been released from custody.
Smith, 70, filed a petition for bail in June with the state’s high court after being denied bail by Leflore County courts, which found his release would constitute a “special danger” to Abraham and his family.
Attorneys for Smith argued in court documents that his constitutional rights are being violated because he is jailed without bond.
In an unscientific poll conducted at gwcommonwealth.com, 51 percent of respondents said Smith should not be granted bail, 46 percent said he should and 3 percent had no opinion. The poll received 444 responses, an unusually high number for the Commonwealth’s weekly online poll.
The physician has held a grudge against Abraham for more than a decade and allegedly hired two assassins, Keaira Byrd and Lacy, to kill the attorney.
But Byrd ended up dying in a shootout with Mississippi attorney general’s agents at Abraham’s office across from the Leflore County Courthouse on April 28. Lacy was injured, and an attorney general’s agent was grazed by a bullet. Abraham wasn’t harmed.
Smith faces a capital murder charge in Byrd’s death and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder relating to the plot on Abraham’s life.
• Contact Charlie Smith at 581-7235 or csmith@gwcommonwealth.com.
Order denying bond
