Court Allows Cop Killer to Drop Appeal

In a divided decision announced today the Arkansas Supreme Court has upheld a condemned murderer’s request to end the appeal of his conviction and sentence.   Andrew DeMillo of the Associated Press reports that Jerry Lard, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer during a traffic stop in 2011, was found competent by the court to waive his right to post conviction relief.  Lard’s counsel argued that a mental review by a psychologist had concluded that Lard suffered from mild intellectual disability which should make him ineligible for execution.  The court held that because an execution date had not yet been set, the question of Lard’s eligibility for execution was not yet ripe for review.  Dashcam video from Officer Jonathan Schmidt’s patrol car showed Lard shooting him in the face, and the officer can later be heard begging for his life, before he was killed.