Texarkana attorney Jeff Harrelson had sought a pretrial determination by Eighth Judicial District-North Circuit Judge Wm. Randal Wright that Melvin Jordan, 24, could not stand trial by reason of an inability to assist in his defense, based upon a 2008 mental evaluation. In a Feb. 11, 2008, motion, Harrelson asked for the evaluation and gave notice of an intention to present an affirmative defense of mental disease and/or defect.

However, Dr. Jeremy Hinton, forensic psychiatry fellow of the Arkansas State Hospital, concluded from his evaluation of Jordan that he was mentally capable to stand trial in the Aug. 9, 2007, shooting death of Antwan Brandon, 23, of Hope.

Wright had granted in August, 2008, a subsequent motion by Harrelson to have Jordan submit to an “independent evaluation,” the report of which was to have been filed in circuit court by December, 2008. That evaluation was not part of the court record at the start of jury selection Monday in the capital murder trial of Jordan.

Harrelson said Monday that he decided to forego the affirmative defense.
“The mental evaluations that came back weren’t going to get us where we wanted to be in terms of the motions we’d filed,” he said.
He said Tuesday after Jordan pleaded guilty that, while the evaluations were involved in the decision, the key factor stemmed from the facts themselves.

“The face was, unfortunately for Mr. Jordan, that he shot Antwan Brandon and possessed cocaine while he had a firearm,” Harrelson said.
He said Wright had to make a determination regarding the mental evaluations in order to accept the pleading.
Eighth Judicial District-North Chief Deputy Prosecutor Christi McQueen said Tuesday that the pleading from Jordan was accepted after consultation with Brandon’s family.

“Ultimately, this was the family’s decision to enter into a negotiated plea,” McQueen said.
Jordan was arrested at a residence in Ozan after a 12-hour manhunt stemming from his shooting Brandon in front of the residence of Jordan’s girlfriend, Roshanda L. Wyrick, at 820 E. Hickory St. in the predawn hours of Aug. 9, 2007.

Wyrick alleged to police that she heard the sound of an argument outside the residence and that Jordan came back into the house, took a handgun from a shelf in the kitchen, then went back outside. Wyrick told police that she went to the door and heard a shot, but did not see the shooting. She said Jordan ran back into the house, found a pair of shoes and left without saying anything.

The arrest affidavit filed in the case states that Jordan told Hope police where to find the gun, and it was recovered, along with a plastic bag containing a small amount of what was believed to be crack cocaine.