Three weeks ago defense attorneys approached prosecutors seeking the Alford plea option, Prosecutor Scott Ellington of Jonesboro said.
At no time did we make an offer, Ellington said. The offer was made to us.
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel was contacted by defense council, and a meeting was arranged, Ellington said.
http://www.paragoulddailypress.com/a...9058784712.txt
Sorry, but your link is broken. Also, I'm not sure why it's important who came up with the Alford Plea. What
is important is that the prosecution agreed to it. If the defense teams were more intelligent and therefore more able to find a solution to the conundrum, so be it.
The original proposal was
not the Alford Plea. Originally, all the defense attorneys wanted to do was to skip the evidentiary hearing and proceed directly to the new trials. That idea was not accepted. Benca and McDaniel were the first two to meet because they were friends from law school.
"The two attorneys met for a late lunch at the Little Rock Club on Wednesday, Aug. 3. They chatted a bit about their families, friends and school days. 'Then,' Benca said, 'the discussion turned to the possibility that Judge Laser would order new trials.'
As he and Braga had planned, Benca tried to keep the conversation's focus 'as simple as possible.' Benca bore down on the rationale that if Laser were to consider the juror misconduct issue, he would almost certainly order new trials.
Benca said McDaniel told him he 'still believed those boys were responsible for the crime.' Benca said the attorney general also informed him, 'that he didn't have the decision-making power: that was Scott Ellington's job.'
Still, Benca could see that McDaniel was listening closely to his idea that
all parties could leap-frog over the hearing by agreeing to new trials beforehand. When Benca concluded, McDaniel responded, 'That's a big ask.'"
http://www.arktimes.com/gyrobase/the-big-ask/Content?oid=1888389&showFullText=true
However, Ellington was the one who presented the idea of the Alford Plea (which was agreed to through negotiations by both sides) to Judge Laser.
"The defense teams gave Ellington permission to approach Judge Laser
ex parte, or outside of a formal hearing, to determine if he would consider the proposed pleas and if he had any suggestions, procedurally, for how the sides should go forward. Laser requested some additional language in the agreements pertaining to the Supreme Court's order, but other than that, Benca said, he generally accepted the plan."
http://www.arktimes.com/gyrobase/the-big-ask/Content?oid=1888389&showFullText=true
If the defense teams "gave Ellington permission" to present the Alford Plea to Judge Laser, that implies that he asked to present it. The entire article that I linked to is very informative, although it is long. It is a summary of much of the legal discussion since the ASSC ordered the evidentiary hearing.
Part of what is discussed in the article is the fact that no physical evidence exists
to date that implicates the WMFree. It also mentions Ellington's misgivings as to being able to get a guilty verdict again. So, even if the Alford Plea was the defense teams' idea, the important thing is that both the prosecution and the judge accepted it. IIRC, that's what happens in a negotiation.
Ellington's statement that you quoted, like the plea itself, is IMO just an attempt to save face and placate those who might still somehow believe (erroneously, IMO) the WMFree to be guilty. I have no doubt but that Ellington wanted this case over and done. It would not be good to have this case still up in the air if he has political aspirations. That, and the fact that the cash-starved State of Arkansas is now free from the threat of a lawsuit, is why this deal happened so quickly.
