Pitts v. State

Eugene Issac Pitts was found guilty by a jury of felony murder in 1979 and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. In the decision affirming the judgment, we noted that petitioner kidnapped Bernard Jones from his home and killed him and that the Jones’s wife positively identified Pitts, whom she knew well, as her husband’s assailant. We further noted that an expert forensic witness had testified that hairs found on the victim’s body were like Pitts’s hair. Pitts v. State, 273 Ark. 220, 617 S.W.2d 849 (1981). Pitts subsequently filed in this court a petition pursuant to Arkansas Rule of…