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Copeland

Attorneys for former death row inmate Arthur T. “A.C.” Copeland were in Blount County Circuit Court Monday seeking to remove the Blount County District Attorney General’s Office from prosecuting their client’s upcoming retrial.

Following a successful move made in 2001 by counsel for another defendant accused in the same murder — that of 18-year-old Andre Jackson in Maryville during 1998 — Copeland’s attorneys are calling into question statements made by witness Ashley James about the involvement of prosecutors in Copeland’s original 2000 trial that culminated in his conviction and death sentence.

Copeland, 34, was granted a new trial by the Tennessee Supreme Court in January of this year after the state’s highest court ruled expert testimony was erroneously barred from being included in the trial by his defense. The court remanded the case back to Blount County, but left capital punishment on the table as an option if Copeland is again convicted of first-degree murder.

Copeland’s defense

In a motion filed by Copeland’s Knoxville attorneys, Susan E. Shipley and Robert R. Kurtz, the argument is made that the Blount County District Attorney General’s Office has a conflict of interest and an “appearance of impropriety” in prosecuting Copeland for several reasons.

Most of the argument comes from a statement made by James, who was a prosecution witness during the 2000 trial, to a private investigator during the trial of Reginald Stacy Sudderth — who was accused of placing a $10,000 bounty on Jackson’s life. Sudderth was acquitted on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in August of 2006.

Attached to Copeland’s motion was an affidavit by the private investigator, which laid out James’ accusations. The affidavit states James claimed her testimony was molded by prosecutors Kirk Andrews and Ed Bailey, with whom she “rehearsed and practiced her testimony on at least two occasions.” Other claims made by James include that prosecutors told her what emotions to show during the trial and that she was asked at one point to cry. The most serious charge made in the affidavit — one termed by Copeland’s attorneys as the “subornation of perjury” — was that James claimed prosecutors told her to change her story and to “testify to what (another witness) said happened and not what she (Ashley James) said happened.”

Andrews and Bailey denied the allegations when they came up during Sudderth’s case.

While the two prosecutors from the 2000 trial are no longer employed by the Blount County District Attorney General’s Office, the motion made by Copeland’s attorneys argues that because District Attorney General Mike Flynn was overseeing the 2000 case and would be, as the head of the office, overseeing the upcoming case a conflict still remained. And because the alleged improprieties would likely come up in Copeland’s retrial, there was the possibility that a prosecutor could be called as a witness, causing an immediate conflict.

Copeland’s motion states, citing United States vs. Birdman from 1979, “The professional impropriety of assuming a dual role of advocate and witness has long been acknowledged by both English and American bars.”

Before Sudderth’s 2006 trial stemming from the same murder, a similar tactic was employed using James’ tape-recorded statements to the private investigator. In a 2001 advisory ethics opinion delivered by the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, the board advised the Blount County District Attorney Generals to withdraw from the case for many of the same reasons now argued by Copeland’s attorneys. And in September of 2001 the Blount County District Attorney General’s Office was removed from the case by the presiding judge.

Monday’s hearing

Blount County Circuit Judge Michael Meares was scheduled to rule on the motion Monday, but did not because the prosecution had not prepared a written response.

“I do not find a response to this from the state,” Meares said to Blount County Assistant District Attorney General Rocky Young.

“Obviously this is a matter of great seriousness,” Meares continued, noting Copeland’s was a death penalty case. “I need a response.”

Young explained that he had planned to argue the state’s side of the motion orally, and was unaware that Meares required a written response.

Meares gave both sides until Oct. 15 to file any further motions and until Oct. 22 to file responses to current or future motions.

A ruling on the arguments will be made by Meares at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 1 in Blount County Circuit Court.