Dr. Arnold Smith is awaiting a final court order to be sent to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield after a chancellor ruled that Smith should be committed for treatment for his mental illness.
Specially appointed Chancellor Hollis McGehee ordered Smith institutionalized at Whitfield after hearing testimony from four mental health experts during a series of civil commitment hearings, the last of which was held Tuesday at the Leflore County Justice Center.
Smith, who attended the proceeding, had no visible reaction after hearing the judge’s order.
The mental health experts — including Dr. Reb McMichael, director of forensic services at Whitfield, and Dr. Gilbert Macvaugh III, a psychologist hired by the defense — all testified that the 72-year-old Greenwood oncologist suffers from a serious mental illness, which most diagnosed as a delusional disorder.
Smith’s case was referred to chancery court after specially appointed Circuit Court Judge Breland Hilburn ruled that the physician was unfit to stand trial on charges of capital murder and conspiracy to commit murder for his alleged role as the instigator of a failed murder-for-hire scheme against Greenwood attorney Lee Abraham.
The alleged plot culminated in a shooting on April 28, 2012, at Abraham’s Market Street law office between two alleged hitmen and agents from the state Attorney General’s Office.
One alleged hitman, Keaira Byrd, was killed in the shooting; another, Derrick Lacy, was left critically wounded. A law enforcement agent suffered minor injuries. Abraham was unhurt.
Smith was arrested the next day and has remained in custody ever since. He was held at Whitfield for 15 months for mental evaluation prior to Hilburn’s ruling that Smith was not competent to stand trial. He was returned to the Leflore County Jail in early September.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Smith’s attorney, William Bell of Ridgeland, argued that his client should be ordered to attend outpatient treatment but should be allowed to live with his wife, Mary, at a home they own in the Jackson area.
Macvaugh, the psychologist hired by the defense, testified that he didn’t think Smith would pose a substantial risk to himself or others if properly treated and monitored — something Macvaugh argued could be easily achieved in an outpatient setting.
That didn’t convinced McGehee, who said he didn’t see an alternative for Smith other than institutionalization. Still, McGehee said he hoped that Smith’s treatment would progress to the point where the physician could be released into less restrictive custody at some point.
McGehee, a retired chancellor from Lucedale, was appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court after all three judges in the Seventh Chancery Court — Jon M. Barnwell, Catherine Farris-Carter and W.M. Sanders — recused themselves from the hearing, citing longstanding ties to Abraham, a prominent and politically active attorney.
Smith, who wore tan jail scrubs and had his hands shackled to his waist during Tuesday’s hearing, scrawled notes to his attorney throughout the proceedings. He also nodded along in agreement at points during testimony, including when one mental health expert said that Smith, a medical doctor, demanded to be included in discussions over his treatment.
Smith’s understanding of his own mental condition and his willingness to submit to treatment were key topics during expert testimony Tuesday. All four experts who testified said that Smith likely doesn’t believe he’s mentally ill.
Dr. Gerald O’Brien, a psychologist who evaluated Smith at the request of the court, said he didn’t believe that Smith would voluntarily submit to treatment because the doctor believes “he’s his own best authority.”
Dr. Gregory Gordon, a psychiatrist from the University of Mississippi Medical Center who also evaluated Smith, said that Smith’s delusional disorder took the form of deep-seated false beliefs and that the oncologist “doesn’t feel he has any mental problems.”
Nonetheless, Gordon described Smith as an incredibly intelligent and talented person. At the State Hospital, Smith’s IQ was tested at 127 — a figure Gordon estimated was low by a considerable margin.
“I assure you, ‘genius’ is an appropriate description for this gentleman,” Gordon said.
Looking over Smith’s career, though, Gordon said he recognized a pattern of behavior and belief — including disagreements with hospital administrators during stints at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and Baptist Medical Center in Jackson and conflicts with officials at the Greenwood Leflore Hospital — that indicated Smith tended to believe he was being persecuted.
Macvaugh testified that Smith’s delusions of persecution were exacerbated in Greenwood, where his long-simmering dislike of Abraham — who represented an ex-wife during contentious divorce proceedings in the 1990s — developed into what approached a paranoid obsession.
Shortly before the Market Street shooting, Smith was allegedly assaulted, stabbed and beaten with a hammer at the corner of Dewey Street and River Road while attempting to buy incriminating photos of Abraham from an unidentified informant.
Macvaugh testified that videos recorded in Smith’s medical clinic showed that a string of informants — referred to as “street people” by Macvaugh and apparently paid by Smith for information about Abraham — told Smith that Abraham was planning to have Smith killed.
In a letter Smith wrote to Gov. Phil Bryant shortly before the alleged assault on River Road and just 10 days before the shooting, Smith accused Abraham of running an underground drug-trafficking and prostitution ring. Smith also contended in the letter that Abraham, a practicing Catholic of Lebanese descent, is a closet Muslim who “still wants me killed, as power, dirty money, Jihad, destruction and hate are the Muslim way.”
In testimony at a previous hearing, McMichael, who led evaluations of Smith while he was previously held at Whitfield, said he observed Smith during meetings with his attorney. In those meetings, McMichael said, Smith would occasionally launch into bizarre tangents, including discussions of the history of the Delta and “his beliefs about Muslim people wanting to establish a caliphate in Greenwood.”
At Tuesday’s hearing, McGehee said that, under state law, Smith would be initially committed to Whitfield for several weeks before mental health experts there would report back on Smith’s condition and possible courses of treatment.
Following the hearing, Smith lingered in the courtroom to speak briefly with his wife and with Macvaugh, the defense-hired psychologist, before being returned to his cell in the county jail by sheriff’s deputies. McGehee said he hoped to have a order transferring Smith to Whitfield signed and filed by the end of the week.
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
