The charge was actually bogus. Steve, a drug dealer and a drug addict had an argument with his mother while he was out of his mind on alcohol and drugs. Also present was Steve’s friend John Darter. Unaware that Darter was an informant who at the time was wearing a wire and attempting to make a controlled buy, Steve told Darter that he would pay him $5,000.00 to kill his mother. When John asked Steve how he wanted the job done, Steve replied that there was a chainsaw in the garage that would do just fine.
The entire conversation was caught on tape.
After letting Steve sit on the County Jail for 9 months, Mary Robinson contacted the Law Offices of Sexton and Fields to help get her son out of jail. The attorneys that handled the case were former Sebastian County prosecutor Ron Fields and former Sebastian County deputy prosecutor Steven Tabor.
In exchange for a guilty plea Steve Robinson received a large suspended sentence and agreed to attend a psychiatric and drug treatment center in San Diego, California.
Attorney, Ron Fields later went to work for the Drug Enforcement Agency then the Department of Homeland Security during George W. Bush’s administration. Attorney, Steven Tabor would become a Sebastian County circuit court judge.
Here’s where the story gets interesting.
On or about February 11, 2008, Judge Tabor signed a search warrant that gave members of the Fort Smith Police Department the authority to search the residence of 540 North 66th Street. The resident and owner of the home was his former client, Steve Robinson.
Officers executed the warrant and discovered marijuana, oxycontin, drug paraphernalia and a firearm. Steve was arrested and taken to the Sebastian County Detention Center.
The following morning Steve appeared before his former defense attorney. And when Judge Tabor read the list of charges against him – possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of oxycontin with intent to deliver, simultaneous possession of drugs and a firearm, and maintaining a premises for drug sales – Steve was also informed the state had filed a Petition to Revoke (PTR) his suspended sentence, the same suspended sentence Judge Tabor had helped negotiate a decade earlier.
To me this entire case wreaked conflict of interest.
Judge Tabor was Steve’s former attorney. He knew Steve personally and certainly knew that Steve was an addict. Because of Steve’s addiction, he even helped negotiate a plea deal for him - a plea deal that included rehab. Then when Tabor becomes a Judge he not only signed a search warrant that gave authorities permission to search his former client’s home for drugs, the warrant produces evidence that was used to revoke the very same suspended sentence that Tabor helped Steve get in the first place.
When a law enforcement agent seeks permission for a search warrant he is required to provide evidence that establishes probable cause. Based on those facts and those facts alone, a Judge has the ethical duty to determine if there is enough probable cause to issue a warrant.
Because Judge Tabor had previous knowledge of Steve Robinson’s drug history, there is no way of knowing if the Judge signed the search warrant based on “probable cause” or “reasonable expectation”, the later being an invalid reason for signing a warrant. Therefore based on this uncertainty or more like conflict of interest the appropriate remedy would be to invalidate the warrant and suppress all of the evidence.
Steve retained an attorney name Marvin Honeycutt who initially told Steve that there was no conflict of interest in this case. In fact, he didn’t even want to argue this issue. I therefore took it upon myself to research the issue and sent Mr. Honeycutt my findings and suggestions via his client. Although I never received a response from Mr. Honeycutt or his paralegal Roberta L. Cooke, I read the Motion to Suppress Evidence that they filed – it was worthless.
When the motion was denied, I was not surprised.
In September of 2008 Steve’s suspended sentence was revoked and he is currently in the Arkansas Department of Corrections serving [I believe] a 25 year sentence. But the story doesn’t end here.
From 1991 to 1993 I supplied cocaine to a man named Stevie Lee. Stevie, a resident of Sebastian County, sold cocaine to people in Fort Smith who were among the country club crowds. One of them was an attorney who lived in the Greenwood, Arkansas area named James Cox. On one occasion, I, Stevie and a Fort Smith business man went to Mr. Cox’s home.
Like Steven Tabor, James Cox also became a Sebastian County circuit court judge.
Prior to going to prison Steve Robison attempted to take his own life. He did so because he was messed up on drugs, he so because he didn’t want to go back to prison, and he did so because he felt that his former attorney – Judge Steven Tabor – had royally screwed him.
When he was release from the hospital Steve Robison was taken into custody and brought before a judge for a PTR hearing. The judge determined that no conflict of interest occurred between Judge Tabor and the defendant, and revoked his suspended sentence, sending him immediately to prison. And the judge who did this was none other than Judge James Cox, a man who once snorted my cocaine.
It’s my opinion that a conflict did occur in the Robison case and if Steve had the proper legal help the evidence against him would be suppressed and he would go free. Furthermore, it is my opinion that a former cocaine user turned judge has no business sending drug offenders to prison. That in itself seems like a moral and ethical conflict of interest.
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