The argument of Dr. Arnold Smith’s attorney was struck down before he could even stand up to make it during a hearing Tuesday.
William Bell of Ridgeland was red-faced as he proceeded to the podium, addressing the court for the record only after specially appointed Circuit Judge Breland Hilburn told him that he had previously ruled on the matters addressed in the motions filed and didn’t see a purpose in hearing them again.
Those motions, filed last month, sought once again to void sections of the Mississippi Code and to void all actions of the Attorney General’s Office in the year and a half following Smith’s arrest on April 29, 2012.
Smith was arrested the day after a shooting at Greenwood attorney Lee Abraham’s Market Street law office. That shooting left one alleged hitman, Keaira Byrd, dead and another, Derrick Lacy, critically wounded. Byrd was felled by a bullet to the head by an investigator from Attorney General Jim Hood’s office.
Smith is charged with two counts of conspiring to kill Abraham, toward whom the oncologist has held a longtime animosity. He was originally charged with the capital murder of Byrd, though Hilburn lifted that charge last spring. The prosecution may still pursue the lesser charge of depraved heart murder.
Smith was being held at the Leflore County Jail until he was ordered by the court to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield for psychological evaluation last spring. That order followed a declaration from a psychologist hired by his own defense team that Smith is incompetent and unfit to stand trial.
Hilburn said during Tuesday’s hearing that setting a trial date would depend on a status update from the mental facility.
Bell argued that the actions by the attorney general’s office were unconstitutional, based on the separation of powers outlined in the state constitution. Bell argued that Hood and his office are part of the judicial branch of government, barring them from any kind of law enforcement activity, a function of the executive branch.
Hilburn ruled against that argument in January, and so did the state Supreme Court. Bell acknowledged that his argument had been heard before, though he said the court had not yet ruled on the constitutionality of specific statutes of the Mississippi Code.
In New Jersey, for example, the attorney general is the state’s chief law enforcement officer, Bell said. “But that’s in New Jersey,” he said. “We don’t have that written into our constitution. The attorney general is a member of the judicial (branch).”
Bell said that the Attorney General’s Office, which has acted in a law enforcement capacity for decades, has been “hanging its hat on these statutes for 20 years,” referring to the precedents that prosecutors argued do grant law enforcement authority to the attorney general.
The judge said he would issue an order on that section of Bell’s argument shortly.
The hearing was an easy fight for Harold Pizzetta, special assistant attorney general, who drove from Jackson to argue the constitutionality of his office’s actions. Following Bell, Pizzetta appeared calm and tempered.
As Pizzetta and Hilburn spoke, Smith rubbed his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Each time Bell addressed the court, however, the oncologist looked up and stopped fidgeting. He wore a khaki jumpsuit and shackles, though he did appear to have gotten sun, and the goatee he has worn since his jail stay was neatly trimmed.
Smith’s wife, Mary, sat in the gallery as the hearing proceeded. At one point, Smith blew her kisses.
• Contact Jeanie Riess at 581-7235 or jriess@gwcommonwealth.com.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Dr. Arnold Smith's defense is arguing that the Mississippi attorney general's police actions violate the U.S. Constitution. The contention is that the actions violate the state constitution.
