LITTLE ROCK — The state Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the latest appeal by a Fort Smith man sentenced to die for stabbing his estranged wife to death on a city street.
The high court upheld Thomas Leo Springs’ capital murder conviction and death sentence in the Jan. 21, 2005, slaying of Christina Springs, rejecting his argument that he received ineffective counsel at his trial in Sebastian County Circuit Court.
Christina Springs was riding in the front passenger seat of a car driven by her sister when Thomas Springs rammed his vehicle into the car at a busy Fort Smith intersection. Thomas Springs then got out of his vehicle, shattered the passenger window of his sister-in-law’s car, began beating his wife’s face into the dashboard, then went back to his car and retrieved a knife which he used to stab his wife repeatedly.
Springs, 49, argued on appeal that his trial attorneys, Chief Public Defender John Joplin and Cash Haaser, a deputy public defender, were ineffective because:
• They failed to interview his son and failed to call his son as a witness during the penalty phase.
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• They failed to object to “gross misstatements of the law of mitigation” made by then-Prosecuting Attorney Steve Tabor during closing arguments.
• They failed to object to testimony that Springs had threatened a jailer while awaiting trial.
• They failed to object to the introduction of written victim-impact statements.
• They failed to question prospective jurors about possible bias related to the fact that Springs is black and his wife was white.
• They failed to explain properly Springs’ right to present unfavorable testimony about his wife during the penalty phase, resulting in Springs unknowingly waiving his right to present that evidence.
In its unanimous opinion Thursday, the Supreme Court said Springs did not establish a reasonable probability that the testimony of his son or a different description of the law of mitigation would have resulted in a different sentence.
Regarding Springs’ other arguments, the court said Springs did not show that his attorneys’ actions fell outside the bounds of reasonable professional judgment. Springs supported many of his arguments with conclusory statements instead of citing specific acts and omissions constituting ineffective counsel, the court said.
“Conclusory statements cannot be the basis of post-conviction relief,” Justice Donald Corbin wrote in the opinion.
The Supreme Court rejected a previous appeal by Springs of his conviction and sentence in December 2006.