In a stop-and-go-fashion, Justinna Curlee’s plea on drug-related charges was finally completed during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
The 36-year-old Curlee entered a no contest plea, meaning she is not admitting guilt, but agrees the state has sufficient evidence to convict her at trial.
She was sentenced to two years in the state prison system.
Curlee was arrested in late July last year when an Arkansas State Police trooper found her passed out behind the wheel of her vehicle with the engine running.
The trooper arrested Curlee on an active arrest warrant out of the Mountain Home Police Department and also because she had a suspended driver’s license.
During an inventory of Curlee’s vehicle, the trooper located a backpack behind the driver’s seat containing a small amount of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. As Curlee’s sentencing process continued, she seemed to be denying the backpack and its contents belonged to her.
Circuit Judge David Laser of Jonesboro, who was substituting for Judge Gordon Webb who was tied up in a murder trial in Harrison, told Curlee her hesitation concerned him. He said he did not want to send anyone to prison for something they didn’t do.
After a significant amount of back-and-forth between Curlee and her Public Defender, Mark Cooper, Curlee agreed to take the plea. Judge Laser said if she was still hesitant, the options of a jury or bench trial were still open to her.
Curlee finally decided to enter the no contest plea to the charges against her.
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