Court affirms conviction in TV anchorwoman’s murder (Anne Pressly)

By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

Source: Arkansas News

LITTLE ROCK — The man convicted in the brutal rape and murder of a Little Rock television anchorwoman lost his appeal today before the Arkansas Supreme Court.


Anne Pressly
The state’s highest court upheld the conviction of Curtis Lavell Vance in the death of Anne Pressly, who hosted the program “Daybreak” on ABC affiliate KATV. The 26-year-old Pressly was attacked in her Little Rock home in the early morning hours of Oct. 20, 2008, and died in a hospital five days later without regaining consciousness.

Vance was convicted of capital murder, residential burglary, theft of property and rape and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, though prosecutors had sought the death penalty.

On appeal, Vance, now 30, argued that a saliva sample he gave to police should not have been admitted at his trial because he gave it after police illegally seized him from his Marianna residence and took him to the Marianna police station without arresting him.

No reasonable person would believe that when six officers arrived at his residence and asked him to go with them he was free not to comply, Vance claimed.

The Supreme Court disagreed, noting in its opinion Thursday the officers’ testimony that their tone while speaking to Vance was “light, jovial, polite, friendly and casual.”

After Vance was later arrested, he told police he was in Pressly’s neighborhood to steal laptop computers when he entered her home, saw her in her bed, hit her several times and sexually assaulted her.

Vance argued on appeal that his statements should have been suppressed because he did not knowingly waive his right to have a lawyer present. He said police coerced him into confessing by talking about “a mob of people outside the jailhouse waiting to just explode,” among other intimidating comments.

The Supreme Court opinion said Vance eventually invoked his right to a lawyer and ended the questioning about Pressly’s death, demonstrating that his earlier statements were freely given.

After Vance was incarcerated, he twice gave statements to police about his actions at Pressly’s home and other burglaries he said he committed with accomplices. He argued on appeal that the statements should have been suppressed, but the Supreme Court said the record is clear that Vance initiated each contact with police and waived his right to have a lawyer present.

Vance also argued that evidence related to the April 21, 2008, rape of a Marianna woman should not have been admitted at his capital murder trial. Vance was charged in that rape, but a trial ended in a hung jury.

The Supreme Court said the two incidents were similar enough to make the evidence from the earlier incident admissible to show an intent, plan or scheme.

Vance argued further that he should have been allowed to introduce expert testimony about a possible connection between diminished IQ and false confessions. The high court said the jury was able to draw its own conclusions about the confessions.

Vance also claimed a mistrial should have been declared after a prosecutor said during closing arguments that Vance’s lawyer was trying to mislead the jury, although Vance’s lawyer did not immediately ask for a mistrial at the time. The Supreme Court said it did not see the prosecutor’s remarks “as rising to the level of a serious error for which the circuit court had a duty to grant a mistrial on its own.”

Finally, Vance argued that a mistrial should have been declared after two jurors saw him leaving the courthouse in shackles and jail clothes at the end of the trial’s third day. The trial judge had granted a motion that Vance appear in the courtroom in civilian clothes.

The high court said Vance’s lawyer never requested a mistrial for that reason, and in any case the incident did not warrant a mistrial.

Chief Justice Jim Hannah wrote in a separate opinion that he concurred in the majority’s decision to uphold Vance’s conviction, but he believed that if the evidence related to the Marianna rape had been found inadmissible, Vance’s murder conviction would be subject to reversal.

“The state introduced the evidence of the unrelated crimes in Marianna at its own peril,” Hannah wrote.

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"I sure am glad this guy is off the streets!!!"