GREENWOOD — A Greenwood doctor charged in a murder-for-hire case has been undergoing a court-ordered mental evaluation at the Mississippi State Hospital in Rankin County for a month.
Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks tells the Greenwood Commonwealth that Dr. Arnold Smith was taken to the state hospital on June 4.
“I haven’t heard anything yet,” said Banks. “I guess they’ll call us when they’re ready for us to pick him up.”
Smith’s trial has been indefinitely postponed.
Smith, 71, is charged with murder as the alleged instigator of a plot that ended with the death of gunman Keaira Byrd and the serious wounding Derrick Lacy. Byrd allegedly had been hired to kill attorney Lee Abraham, who represented Smith’s ex-wife in their divorce years ago. Abraham was not injured.
Smith has also been charged with two counts of conspiring to murder Abraham.
He has been held without bail since his arrest April 29, 2012, the day after the shooting.
Smith was ordered to the state hospital for evaluation after a psychologist hired by his defense team declared him incompetent and unfit to stand trial. After Dr. Gilbert S. Macvaugh III’s evaluation of Smith, which was attached to a motion filed by the defense in Circuit Court, the prosecution requested its own evaluation of Smith.
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