ROLLING FORK — In a lengthy hearing Thursday, a chancery judge ruled that Dr. Arnold Smith will need to be evaluated by at least two more mental health experts before a decision can be made on whether to commit Smith to a mental institution.
The chancellor will make a ruling on whether to commit Smith during a second hearing, currently scheduled for Wednesday. The time and venue for the hearing have not yet been determined.
At the initial hearing Thursday in the civil commitment proceedings for Smith, held at the Sharkey County Courthouse, specially appointed Chancellor Hollis McGehee denied requests by Smith’s attorney that the 72-year-old oncologist be released from jail pending the outcome of the proceedings.
William Bell, a Ridgeland attorney who has been representing Smith, argued Thursday that his client’s rights had been violated during lengthy delays in the commitment proceedings and said Smith should be placed into the “least restrictive custody” while awaiting McGehee’s ruling.
Smith, shackled at the waist and wearing pale green scrubs and leather shoes with laces removed, was transported back to the Leflore County Jail following the hearing Thursday, where he has been held since specially appointed circuit court Judge Breland Hilburn ruled Oct. 8 that the physician is mentally unfit to stand trial on charges of capital murder and attempted murder.
Smith has been accused of initiating a failed murder-for-hire scheme to kill Greenwood attorney Lee Abraham. The alleged plot culminated in an April 28, 2012, shooting at Abraham’s Market Street law office between two alleged hitmen and agents from the state Attorney General’s Office that left one alleged hitman, Keaira Byrd, dead and another, Derrick Lacy, critically wounded.
Abraham, though present in the law office, was unhurt in the shooting.
In his Oct. 8 ruling, Hilburn ordered Smith’s case transferred to chancery court in order to have Smith committed for psychiatric treatment after a number of mental health experts testified that Smith suffers from paranoid delusions and is unlikely to recover sufficiently to ever stand trial.
Numerous delays, though, have held up the civil commitment proceedings, which state law stipulates must take place within 10 days of the case being filed with the chancery court.
Among the causes of delay was the decision on Oct. 29 by all three judges in the Seventh Chancery Court — Jon M. Barnwell, Catherine Farris-Carter and W.M. Sanders — to recuse themselves from the hearing, citing longstanding ties to Abraham, a prominent and politically active attorney.
McGehee, a retired chancellor from Lucedale, was appointed by the state Supreme Court to hear the case on Nov. 3, but no hearings were scheduled until Thursday’s court date in Rolling Fork.
“That was over a month ago, and my client has been sitting in jail the whole time,” Bell told McGehee at Thursday’s hearing. “The state has not proceeded with the commitment proceeding in a timely manner.”
Bell filed a writ of habeas corpus with the state Supreme Court in October, requesting that Smith be released from jail due to the lengthy delays in the proceedings. The Supreme Court denied the motion.
Thursday, McGehee said he was sympathetic to Bell’s complaints but wasn’t willing to order any change in Smith’s status without hearing more testimony and further reviewing the case.
“I’m just not comfortable hearing from one side with incomplete information and deciding what the least restrictive environment is,” McGehee said. “I think the appropriate decision at this point ... is for Dr. Smith to remain in the county jail.”
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
