Shawn Eaton changed his plea to guilty on charges of having inappropriate sexual contact with young girls and was sentenced to six years in prison during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
The 21-year-old Eaton waived his right to a jury trial in mid-January and his cases were scheduled to be tried to the bench, meaning the judge takes the role of both judge and jury, but Eaton opted to change his plea instead. He faced charges of sexual indecency with a child and two counts of second-degree sexual assault.
Eaton was originally arrested in July 2016 when Mountain Home police were called to the Donald W. Reynolds Library. At the library, an 11-year-old female victim reported a man — later identified as Eaton — came up to her and touched her inappropriately. She told officers she pushed Eaton’s arm, he then stepped away a short distance and exposed himself.
There were other incidents of similar behavior involving 10-and-11-year-old girls at a local business and outside a residence.
In one investigative report, Eaton is alleged to have said he frequently engages in sexual activity in public.
Eaton functions at a very low level mentally. His IQ is reported to be in the 50’s. He has undergone mental evaluations to determine his fitness to proceed in his cases. He was found not fit to proceed by one doctor in late 2016 and sent to the Arkansas State Hospital for treatment in mid-May last year. He was discharged after only a short time in the hospital and brought back to Mountain Home to face his charges. In a letter dated July 18th last year, the Forensic Service Program coordinator reported Eaton had “completed his inpatient restoration.”
Eaton’s case has served to highlight the problem of not having readily available facilities to house people who are mentally impaired to the point they might not be expected to do well in a jail setting.
As his cases wound through the justice system, there were attempts to find a facility to meet the twin goals of ensuring public safety and accommodating Eaton’s condition. Those efforts were not successful and he remained locked up in the Baxter County jail.
According to court records, a guardianship case was filed in 2013. In that filing, Eaton was described by a medical doctor as bipolar and a guardian was appointed for him.
Fourteenth Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge agreed it would be best to find an appropriate alternative to keeping Eaton locked in jail or sent to prison, but he said his primary responsibility was to ensure the public is safe from the type behavior Eaton has exhibited.
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