Store clerk's killer gets new trial to decide punishment

Judge rules Andrew Sasser's lawyers didn't do enough to show his intellectual limitations and mental health problems

Andrew Sasser
Andrew Sasser

A federal judge has thrown out the death sentence ordered in 1994 by a Miller County jury in the stabbing death of an EZ Mart clerk in an opinion issued last week.

The conviction of Andrew Sasser, 53, in the July 12, 1993, murder of Jo Ann Kennedy stands but the case has been sent back to Miller County for a new punishment trial. U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes issued an opinion last week in the Texarkana Division of the Western District of Arkansas which found that Sasser's trial lawyer and one of his first appellate lawyers didn't do enough to flesh out for the jury Sasser's intellectual limitations, mental health problems and social history.

Kennedy's half nude body was found shortly after 1 a.m. just outside the door of the store where she was working in Garland City, Ark. Her pants and panties were discovered in the men's room but Kennedy, 55, wasn't raped. The store was locked after midnight but patrons could make purchases through a window.

Buttons were ripped from Sasser's shirt as he forced his way through the window and into the store, according to court records. Blood was splattered on counters, floors and walls. A clump of Kennedy's hair was found in the store. Evidence showed that Kennedy fought for her life and attempted to take refuge in the office but Sasser made entry with a screwdriver.

Kennedy suffered numerous blunt force injuries and numerous stab wounds, several of which proved fatal. Autopsy records state that her lungs were pierced and aorta severed in the horrific attack.

A woman who lived across the street and who also worked at the store happened to look out her window and catch sight of the crime in progress. By the time Miller County Sheriff's Office deputies arrived, Sasser was gone and Kennedy was dead.

Sasser had been sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1988 for a remarkably similar offense. Sasser struck a clerk at an EZ Mart in Lewisville, Ark., in the back of the head with a soda bottle before forcing her to undress and raping her in a nearby alley. Sasser spared the first victim's life after she begged him not to kill her and promised not to tell police he was her attacker. Once alone with an officer, the woman identified Sasser as her rapist and his prosecution and conviction for that crime followed.

Presumably Sasser was on parole for battery, rape and kidnapping in the Lafayette County case when he murdered Kennedy in Miller County.

Holmes issued two opinions March 2 which address Sasser's remaining appellate complaints. Holmes ruled in one opinion that while Sasser isn't of average intellect, his deficiencies don't rise to the level required to avoid the death penalty because of diminished intellectual capacity. Holmes' other opinion addressed Sasser's claims that his trial lawyer and appellate counsel were ineffective.

Holmes' opinion states that Sasser's trial lawyer should have hired appropriately trained, licensed experts early on in the case to evaluate Sasser's mental state and that an in-depth investigation into his life should have been conducted. Had the jury heard testimony concerning his limitations and lack of opportunity, the jury might have chosen a sentence of life without parole possible rather than death, Holmes' opinion states.

For example, the jury did not learn that Sasser was "socially promoted" through school and did not actually graduate from high school. The jury was not told that Sasser was turned down for basic military service because of his performance on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test or that he attempted to hide that fact from his family. The jury did not hear extensive testimony either concerning Sasser's upbringing in extreme poverty or that his father died when he was a toddler.

Likewise Holmes found that Sasser's early appellate lawyer didn't fully examine those issues in Sasser's direct appeals although a lack of resources and funding probably contributed the failing.

Miller County's Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Chuck Black, who prosecuted Sasser in 1994 along with former Prosecuting Attorney and now Circuit Judge Brent Haltom, said his office intends to seek a second death sentence for Sasser if Holmes' ruling stands.

"After almost 40 years of being a prosecutor and having been personally involved in and observed capital murder cases, I believe certain members of the judiciary have a bias against the death penalty," Black said. "It is indefensible and absurd that these cases languish so long in the federal system."

Black said that he believes a new jury is likely to decide Sasser's punishment the same way the first jury did.

"There was a jury of 12 Miller County citizens who considered all the evidence and felt he deserved to be executed," Black said. "My intention is to see that their will is carried out out. I don't believe it would have changed the jury's opinion to have heard evidence that his father died when he was that young or that he didn't perform well in school."

When asked about mitigating evidence, Black pointed out that many people who experienced childhood poverty and whose intelligence is low do not commit capital murder.

Sasser is currently being held in the Varner Supermax Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction. According to ADC's website, Sasser has had no major disciplinary action in his 24 years of life on death row.

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