Mack v. State, CR
| Decision Date | 18 September 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. CR,CR |
| Citation | 905 S.W.2d 842,321 Ark. 547 |
| Parties | Raymond MACK, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 95-282. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Wm. R. Simpson, Jr., C. Joseph Cordi, Jr., Public Defenders, Deputy Public Defender, Little Rock, for appellant.
David R. Raupp, Asst. Attorney General, Little Rock, for appellee.
The appellant, Raymond Mack, appeals from a judgment of conviction for capital murder committed in the course of an aggravated robbery and a judgment of conviction for first degree battery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the capital murder and to five years imprisonment for the battery conviction. He now appeals and asserts that he was denied his right to a speedy trial owing to a biased mental evaluation which necessitated a second examination and, thus, delayed his trial until almost two years following his arrest. We affirm the judgments of conviction.
The murder and battery occurred at about 11:00 p.m. on September 21, 1992, in the vicinity of Ninth and Kirspel Streets in Little Rock. The victim, Shawn Bobb, 1 was driving in the area and had stopped his car. Anthony Salley got in the car and was sitting in the passenger seat at time of the shooting. Da'Shwaunall "Swan" Johnson was sitting in the back seat. Raymond Mack approached the car and, according to Johnson, told Bobb to give Mack his money. Bobb refused, and Mack began shooting. According to a second witness, Yolanda Armstrong, Mack fired several shots into the car. Shawn Bobb was hit once in the chest and killed. Anthony Salley was struck in both of his legs by a second bullet. The murder weapon was found and identified as a Mossberg .22 caliber carbine with a sawed off stock.
Mack was charged with capital murder and first degree battery. The State initially asked for the death penalty, but prior to the two-day trial on August 30, 1994, the State waived that option. Following the jury trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts, and Mack was sentenced accordingly.
The chronology of events pertaining to the speedy trial issue follows. The offense occurred on September 21, 1992, and Mack turned himself in four days later on September 25, 1992. He was incarcerated from that point forward. At the resulting plea and arraignment, he pled not guilty.
On January 8, 1993, Mack changed his plea to not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect and requested a mental evaluation. At the hearing on January 8, the trial court voiced its concern about the time involved for an evaluation. Counsel for Mack stated: "All the time is tolled from today until the evaluation is done so it won't [a]ffect speedy trial." Mack was then committed to the State Hospital for a mental evaluation.
On July 6, 1993, Dr. Michael Simon, a psychologist with the State Hospital, signed a letter to the trial court in which he opined that Mack was capable of assisting in his defense at trial and that Mack appreciated the criminality of his conduct at the time of the murder. Dr. Simon's accompanying report described Mack's contention that "bubbles" had told him to commit the murder at issue. Dr. Simon concluded that the asserted hallucinations were not credible, that Mack was malingering, that he was not psychotic, and that he suffered from an antisocial personality disorder.
On August 12, 1993, a hearing was conducted regarding Dr. Simon's report. At the hearing, it developed that Mack had been gang raped at age eight--a fact which Dr. Simon did not allude to in his report. Dr. Simon had also discounted two prior suicide attempts by Mack. Tests further showed Mack's I.Q. to be 74, or in the borderline intelligence range. Because of the low I.Q. and the request for the death penalty, the State joined in a request for a second mental evaluation. The trial court then commented from the bench: "I'm of the opinion that Dr. Simon did not testify as an objective professional, but he seemed to have been an advocate, he seems to have taken sides and for whatever reason had lost his objectivity." At the close of the hearing, the State raised the speedy trial issue and requested that time continue to be tolled during the evaluation period. The trial court replied: No objection to this ruling was raised by Mack's attorney. On August 25, 1993, the second mental evaluation was ordered by the trial court.
On March 17, 1994, a second competency report relating to Mack was completed by Dr. Jerry Henderson, a psychologist with Professional Counseling Associates, a firm in Little Rock. Dr. Henderson also concluded in his report that...
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...speedy-trial motion. See Dean, 339 Ark. 105, 3 S.W.3d 328; Tanner v. State, 324 Ark. 37, 918 S.W.2d 166 (1996); Mack v. State, 321 Ark. 547, 905 S.W.2d 842 (1995). The reason for requiring a contemporaneous objection is to inform the trial court of the reason for disagreement with its propo......
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Morgan v. State, CR
...the delay resulting from a defendant's request for a second mental evaluation is chargeable to the defendant. See Mack v. State, 321 Ark. 547, 550-51, 905 S.W.2d 842 (1995). The third period excluded by the trial court resulted from Morgan's request for a continuance. Morgan filed a motion ......
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Block v. State, CA CR 09–1373.
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