Burnett v. State

Steele Hays, Justice.

Robert Lee Burnett was convicted of the beating and stabbing death of Rhonda Dobson, a Brinkley, Arkansas convenience store clerk. Satisfied that an impartial jury could not be impanelled in Monroe County, the trial court granted a change of venue to Cross County, where Burnett was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Evidence introduced by the state included a confession Burnett gave to the police shortly after his arrest, and the identification of Burnett by a customer, Ms. Barbara Kuykendall (now Mrs. Short),1 as the man she saw run from the store immediately after…