Lawyer shows tape with confession to fake robbery

The Associated Press

JONESBORO — Jessie Misskelley was so easy to manipulate into saying what others wanted him to say that police would have had little trouble persuading him to confess to a role in the 1993 slayings of three 8-year-old West Memphis boys, his trial lawyer testified Wednesday.

Former Misskelley defense lawyer Dan Stidham provided Circuit Judge David Burnett with a videotape that he said upheld his claim that Misskelley was easy to lead into error.

The judge is presiding over a hearing in which Misskelley is seeking a new trial. His new lawyers claim that he was inadequately represented by his defense team in his 1994 trial, a claim that Stidham doesn’t dispute.

“I wasn’t prepared to deal with this case,” Stidham said.

On the tape — made before Misskelley’s original trial — Stidham and a psychologist convince Misskelley in just a matter of minutes to say that he robbed a convenience store near his home, though no such robbery ever occurred.

“Telling questioners what he thought they wanted to hear plagued (Misskelley) from the start,” Stidham said. “Every time I talked to Mr. Misskelley, the facts would change and the script would change.”

Burnett didn’t allow the tape showing Stidham and the psychologist manipulating Misskelley to be played for jurors at Misskelley’s trial.

The defendant admitted being part of the murders under questioning by investigators in June 1993, and throughout the summer Misskelley told Stidham he committed the crime, the lawyer recalled.

Only after evidence investigators said would tie Misskelley to the crime proved inconclusive did Stidham come to the realization that Misskelley was innocent, Stidham said.

“That’s when a light bulb went off in my head, and I knew I had an innocent client,” he testified.

In addition to his own inadequacies, Stidham said a lack of money prevented him from hiring expert witnesses, and the few who testified were not properly questioned or prepared for the trial.

“I was not sophisticated enough as an inexperienced attorney to adequately prepare an expert witness,” Stidham said.

Prosecutor Brent Davis disputed Stidham’s admission that he performed inadequately at trial. Under cross-examination, he elicited from Stidham testimony that he had spent more than 2,000 hours preparing for the trial. Davis said that was twice the time that an expert would consider adequate.

The hearing was to resume Thursday.