Dr. Arnold Smith is due back in court Tuesday to try and disqualify the attorney general once again.
The hearing, scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Leflore County Justice Center, follows one of the Greenwood oncologist’s thicker motions to be filed since his arrest last year.
Smith, 71, has been held without bond in the Leflore County Jail since April 29, 2012, the day after a shootout at the office of Greenwood attorney Lee Abraham’s Market Street law office. The shooting left one alleged hitman, Keaira Byrd, dead and another, Derrick Lacy, critically wounded.
Smith, who is charged with two counts of conspiring to kill Abraham, was originally charged with capital murder in the death of Byrd. Specially appointed Circuit Judge Breland Hilburn dismissed that charge, though the prosecution will likely pursue the lesser charge of depraved heart murder in the alleged hitman’s death.
Byrd was felled by a bullet to the head by an investigator from Attorney General Jim Hood’s office. When Byrd and Lacy arrived at Abraham’s office, they were met by investigators who had allegedly been tipped off about the murder scheme beforehand.
Smith has spent the last two months at the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield, where he was ordered by Hilburn to undergo psychological evaluation. Earlier this year, a psychologist hired by the defense declared Smith incompetent and unfit to stand trial. Tuesday will be Smith’s first visit to Greenwood since his arrival at Whitfield.
The July 9 motion argues that under the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers, investigators from Hood’s office performed an illegal police operation when they staked out Abraham’s office on the night of the shooting.
The motion also states that all search and arrest warrants issued for Smith should be voided based on a lack of probable cause, and because, according to Smith’s defense team, “all law enforcement activity by any personnel of the Attorney General’s Office is void. There can be no de facto authority for government officials in the judicial branch to perform executive branch law enforcement functions.”
The argument has been made at least twice in the year and a half since Smith’s arrest. It was denied in circuit court and then denied again when Smith’s attorneys presented it to the state Supreme Court.
“They’ve made this argument numerous times in circuit court and in front of the Supreme Court,” Leflore County District Attorney DeWayne Richardson said this morning.
A trial date for Smith, originally scheduled for February, keeps getting postponed. According to Leflore County Circuit Clerk Elmus Stockstill, a trial cannot be scheduled until doctors at Whitfield are finished with their evaluation of Smith’s mental state.
• Contact Jeanie Riess at 581-7235 or jriess@gwcommonwealth.com.
