Jan. 20 ARKANSAS: Hearing Set On Killers Representation A Crawford County circuit judge is expected to decide in February who will represent a death-row inmate who has asked to represent himself. Circuit Judge Gary Cottrell set a hearing for Feb. 3 at 1:30 p.m. to hear Rickey Dale Newmans request. Newman, who represented himself at trial, is being represented in the appeals process by attorneys from the Federal Public Defenders Office in Little Rock. Last week, Newman asked that he be allowed to release the federal public defenders from their representation of his case. The Federal Public Defenders Office was appointed in September by U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson. In his most recent letter to the court, Newman stated, "I Rickey Newman respectfully release the Federal Defenders Office and Ms. (Julie) Brain and Mr. (Bruce) Eddy as Newmans counsel in all courts, the U.S. District Court, Supreme Court and this honorable circuit court, and beg the Federal Defenders office, Ms. Brain and Mr. Eddy not to file any more motions or do anything to stop the only right justice for Marie Cholettes murder, my execution." Newmans letter also asks that the Federal Public Defenders Office be prohibited from filing motions in his case on behalf of anyone else. Newman was convicted on June 10, 2002, of capital murder in the death of Cholette, a Fort Worth, Texas, woman whose mutilated body was found in a makeshift tent near Van Burens Lee Creek Park in February 2001. Newman admitted killing Cholette, stating at trial that she lied about being a member of a railroad gang. (source: The Times Record)
