A former Pine Bluff police officer convicted of sexual assault stemming from a 2014 arrest is entitled to a new trial, the Arkansas Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. Appeals Court Judge David Glover said in the ruling that now-retired Circuit Judge Berlin C. Jones erred when he excluded testimony that the alleged victim had talked with an attorney about a possible civil action.
Maurice Hopkins, who had worked for the Pine Bluff Police Department for two years and nine months, was originally charged with rape but was found guilty of second-degree sexual assault and sentenced to 12 and-a-half years in prison after prosecutors amended the charge. The Appeals Court reversed the conviction and sent it back to Circuit Judge Alex Guynn for a second trial.
Hopkins was on duty at the time of the alleged incident, which occurred after he responded to a reported domestic disturbance call at a Pine Bluff apartment complex on Feb. 23, 2014. The alleged victim lived in another apartment in the complex and said that while she did not witness the incident for which police were called, she knew the male “had issues that she believed caused him to act out.”
After talking to the female involved in the incident, Hopkins asked for the apartment number of the alleged victim; both testified at the 2016 trial, but their testimony differed significantly, with Hopkins saying the sex was consensual, while the woman described it as sexual assault. Testimony at the trial indicated that Hopkins’ DNA was found in the apartment, and he testified that he had been there.
Hopkins was fired for conduct unbecoming an officer after an internal investigation. Regarding the reason for the court ruling, Hopkins had sought to introduce testimony that the alleged victim had talked to an attorney about a possible civil suit against the City of Pine Bluff, while prosecutors objected. The state’s contention was that although state law allows a witness to be cross-examined about bias if a civil lawsuit has been filed, in this case the alleged victim had not filed a suit.
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Prosecutors also said that the alleged victim had talked to an attorney after her name appeared in a detective bureau summary that was posted on a social media page, information that Prosecuting Attorney S. Kyle Hunter said at the time should not have been released.
Although the court ruling said the name of the victim appeared in the newspaper, it is the policy of the Commercial not to identify the names of rape or sexual assault victims. Glover said in the ruling that there is no question that if the alleged victim had decided to pursue a civil lawsuit, a personal interest in the outcome of the trial would be there, and there was no question that she sought advice from an attorney about filing such action.
“Yet, Hopkins was not allowed to inform the jury of that fact,” Glover said in the ruling.
He said, “witness credibility is a linchpin in cases such as this where the jury is essentially confronted with a swearing match. The case turns entirely on whom the jury believes. The severity of the charges and the diametrically opposed accounts make witness credibility a critical ingredient.”