NEWS (3/​21/​20): Arkansas — Arkansas cap­i­tal defen­dant Mauricio Torres will get a third tri­al in the child-abuse mur­der of his six-year-old son after a Benton County tri­al judge declared a mis­tri­al dur­ing the penal­ty-phase of his sec­ond tri­al and vacat­ed the jury’s conviction.

Judge Brad Karren declared a mis­tri­al on March 5 after pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness Quinten Martin, Torres’s step-son, attempt­ed to attack Torres in the jury’s pres­ence. The defense argued that Arkansas law required an ini­tial death sen­tence to be imposed by the same jury that ren­dered the guilt ver­dict. On March 21, Judge Karren ruled in the defense’s favor, agree­ing that a new jury could not be empan­eled for sen­tenc­ing with­out first con­sid­er­ing Torres’s guilt or innocence.

Torres was first con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in November 2016. However, the Arkansas Supreme Court over­turned that con­vic­tion because pros­e­cu­tors had improp­er­ly charged Torres with an alleged rape that had tak­en place entire­ly in Missouri and could not be tried in Arkansas.

NEWS (3/​12/​20): The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled on March 12, 2020 that death-row pris­on­er Jerry Lard, who lawyers say is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, may waive his post-conviction appeals.

Lard’s ini­tial post-con­vic­tion lawyer was per­mit­ted to with­draw from the case cit­ing ​“irrepara­ble harm” to the attor­ney-client rela­tion­ship after he had pre­sent­ed evi­dence that Lard was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. The court appoint­ed new coun­sel to rep­re­sent Lard, who then asked the tri­al court to with­draw his appeals. The tri­al court grant­ed the motion to waive the appeals and the appeals court affirmed that ruling.

However, the court not­ed that a per­son who has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty may not be exe­cut­ed, but declined to rule on Lard’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim, say­ing it is not ripe in the absence of an execution date.