CAMDEN — A Camden man, who was previously granted an appeal after a conviction and life sentence, plead guilty in Ouachita County District court Thursday. Eric Thrower was sentenced to 25 years in the Arkansas Department of Correction.
Thrower was previously convicted of the murder of Erika Batton in September of 2014.
Batton was found beaten and unconscious in her smoke-filled apartment in the Lincoln Center housing complex in 2014. She was transferred to the Ouachita County Medical Center where she was later pronounced dead.
Thrower was previously sentenced to a life in prison and a consecutive term of ten years’ imprisonment for arson, but appealed due to deficiencies in the court record. He argued nine points on appeal and primarily challenged sufficiency of evidence and deficiencies in the record. While the Supreme Court ruled that there was sufficient evidence to support the conviction, the lack of a trial record led them to reverse and remand for a new trial.
In 2016, the Camden News reported that during his trial, the state relied on testimonies from law enforcement and people who were close to Thrower - including former friends, a girlfriend and Thrower’s own sister, Francine Cobb.
Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey Sawyer said in his closing argument that Batton’s murder was a case of “mistaken assumption” on Thrower’s part - citing that Thrower believed Batton had set up one of his close friends, Courtney Anderson, to get arrested earlier on the day of the murder. Sawyer explained that Cobb testified that Thrower was at her apartment in Lincoln Center when Cornelius “Corn” Hennings arrived to tell Thrower that Anderson had been arrested, and that Hennings confirmed that Anderson was so upset by the news that Anderson started crying. The prosecuting attorney stated that Cobb testified that she saw Thrower go into Batton’s residence and that she got close enough to the building that she could hear “gut wrenching screams” from Batton as soon as Thrower had walked in. She then stated that she ran back to her apartment where she later got a call from Thrower telling her to open the back door so he could go in. She described Thrower as looking as if he had “gotten into it” with someone, and that there was blood on his shirt and socks. Cobbs also recalled Thrower telling her that he had to stab Batton to keep her off of him and then he “lit her up.” Cobbs was arrested in 2015 in connection to the Batton murder just days before her brother was taken into custody. Cobb was released shortly before the trial began and was at the trial in civilian clothing after taking the witness stand the day before.
Thrower appeared confident as he was question by his public defender, Robert Jeffery, and stated that he was in Lincoln Center the night of the murder at his girlfriend’s house, nursing an injury he had gotten from playing basketball. He said that he and his girlfriend had fallen asleep on the couch at around 10 p.m., and that he woke up at around 3 a.m. to go upstairs to go to bed. He strongly denied having anything to do with the death of Batton and said he didn’t even know anything about it until someone told him the next morning.
Thrower continued to deny his involvement with the murder while he was being questioned by another prosecuting attorney, David Butler. Butler cross-examined Thrower for about 30 minutes on the witness stand. During Thrower’s testimony, he confirmed that he was a convicted felon for selling cocaine, that his nickname was “Kingpin,” and that he felt strongly about “snitches.”
Butler stated that Thrower had previously stated in an interview with the Camden Police Department that: “If we didn’t have these (expletive) snitches, we wouldn’t have these problems.”
Butler also stated that other witnesses have testified that Thrower said things along the lines of “snitches belong in ditches” while talking to people in Lincoln Center.
Thrower said the statements were exaggerated and that he only had a problem with snitches while he was “in the game,” and that he was no longer into drugs after being busted in Operation Frostbite in February of 2014. However, Butler cited that Thrower had fled from the police months earlier and was arrested for possession of drugs. Butler also asked Thrower if his sister ever yelled out “you need to get this right. You need to tell the truth” to him while they were incarcerated. Thrower said that it had never happened.
During Jeffery’s closing argument, he centered upon the idea that a matching shoe-print was the only physical evidence the state could provide to link Thrower to the murder. But he said that the shoe-print could match a lot of people’s foot size. He also brought up that people testified that they had overheard Cobb say she could not go back to Camden because she had beaten someone one up and set them on fire.
The jury deliberated for nearly two hours before returning with a verdict.
Associate Justice Rhonda K. Woods wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the record is sufficiently complete for this court to conduct a thorough appellate review. It is undisputed that at least fourteen bench conferences—nine of which we do not have full recollection by all parties—written jury instructions, and two juror notes are omitted from the record. There is no verbatim transcript of any dialog between counsel and the court concerning jury instructions.
“The omitted discussion of jury instructions also impacts other issues appealed. For example, Thrower contends that the circuit court should have instructed the jury on finding Cobb an accomplice as a matter of law. The State argues this issue is not preserved. However, that is impossible to determine since the record does not contain a transcript or reconstruction of the discussion, proffer, if any, or objection to the court’s jury-instruction ruling on accomplice as a matter of law.”
“The record’s deficiencies remain palpable. We cannot review all the trial court’s adverse rulings when we are uncertain what adverse rulings occurred. Nor can we confidently engage in the type of review a life-in-prison case demands. A comprehensive appellate review, particularly in criminal matters, is critical to our justice system. Therefore, we hold that the record cannot be sufficiently settled for this court to conduct its Rule 4-3(i) review, and we must reverse and remand for a new trial. We do not consider the remaining issues on appeal because the record is insufficient.”