Yet again, the judge in the Dr. Arnold Smith case said he won’t be stepping down.
During a contentious hearing Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Timothy Jones said Smith’s attorney, William Bell of Ridgeland, was confused about terminology in the case and that Jones’ office never considered seeking the death penalty against the 72-year-old oncologist.
Bell had argued that a recent decision by specially appointed Circuit Court Judge Breland Hilburn would “re-expose” his client to the death penalty.
Bell claimed that Hilburn’s decision at a May hearing to allow a jury to decide whether Smith is guilty of capital murder showed Hilburn’s bias against his client and was grounds to have the judge removed from the case.
“There is no more extreme level of bias by a judge than where a judge, without notice, without warning and without a motion, reinstates a capital murder charge that exposes a defendant to the death penalty,” Bell wrote in a motion for recusal, filed May 22.
Smith was charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit murder in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme targeting attorney Lee Abraham.
Gunfire on April 29, 2012, at Abraham’s Market Street office left one alleged hitman, Keaira Byrd, dead and another, Derrick Lacy, critically wounded. Abraham was unhurt.
Prosecutors also charged Smith with capital murder in the death of Byrd. They have argued that the physician is responsible for Byrd’s death, even though the alleged hitman was killed by an agent from the Attorney General’s Office.
Tuesday, though, Jones chastised Bell for claiming that the case deserved “heightened scrutiny” because of the possibility of the death penalty.
“The state is unequivocally not seeking the death penalty against Dr. Smith,” Jones said. “We don’t intend to, never intended to, never even thought about it.”
Hilburn also appeared annoyed at times with Bell, who has filed at least two previous motions to have Hilburn disqualified from the case.
The judge said the court had never entered a final ruling on whether the jury could consider capital murder charges.
At one point, refering to a passage in Bell’s motion for recusal, Hilburn asked Bell, “What does the word inclination mean, Mr. Bell?”
The transcript, Bell replied, “says you’re convinced that it would be the appropriate process for the jury to consider capital murder, that’s what it says.”
“No, that’s not what it says, Mr. Bell,” Hilburn said. “It says the court’s inclined at this time to actually let the jury be the entity that decides the level of guilt of the defendant.”
Although Hilburn denied Bell’s motion for recusal in the criminal case against the physician, the judge will still need to rule on a similar motion filed in the civil case against Smith, over which Hilburn is also presiding.
Abraham has sued the physician for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages as well as court expenses.
The attorney claims he has had to alter his daily actions and lost enjoyment of his normal life as a result of the alleged plot.
The next hearing in the civil case has been tentatively scheduled for July 2 at 10 a.m. in the Leflore County Courthouse.
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
