After being turned down for a $5 loan to buy a knife, a Cotter man hit his elderly stepfather with a baseball bat and injured his mother when she tried to stop the assault. He was sentenced to five years in prison for the attack and now says he was misinformed about the details of his sentence and wants post conviction relief.
During a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday, a hearing was set for March 28th for 48-year-old Robert Wayne Hadley. Hadley filed a Rule 37 petition in which he alleges he was not given correct information about the amount of time he would have to spend in prison before being eligible for release.
Hadley contends he was told he would only have to serve one-quarter of his sentence, but discovered he would be required to do 100 percent of his time because of a prior felony conviction in Greene County in the eastern part of the state.
In his motion for post conviction relief — which Hadley filed acting as his own attorney — he contends he was “deceived” into accepting the plea agreement and would have rejected it if he “had been given honest and accurate facts” concerning his sentence.
Hadley further contends the 1997 Greene County case had been sealed and should not have been a factor in computing how much prison time he would have to spend before being eligible for release. Electronic court records for Hadley’s Greene County case show no documents available online, which is a sign the record may have been sealed.
According to the probable cause affidavit in the case involving the attack on his parents, Baxter County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a residence along Walnut Lane in Cotter in May last year, after receiving a report of a violent domestic altercation taking place at the home.
It was reported Hadley became enraged after being refused the loan and struck his then 76-year-old stepfather in the head and right hand with a baseball bat. His then 65-year-old mother was injured, as she tried to wrestle the bat away from her son. A neighbor came to the home and was able to take control of the bat, preventing Hadley from continuing the assault against his relatives.
Deputies reported Hadley’s stepfather suffered three fractures to his left cheek, a laceration to the back of his head requiring stitches and an open fracture to the ring finger on his right hand — all caused by blows from the bat.
Hadley’s mother suffered injuries to her left arm, elbow, left thumb and right knee. She also had scratches and bruising to her neck allegedly caused by her son’s attempt to choke her.
Hadley fled the residence before deputies arrived. A search warrant served on a communications provider led lawmen to a residence in Marion County. They converged on the house located along Marion County Road 7032, found Hadley and took him into custody.
At the time he was arrested, the Baxter County Sheriff’s office reported Hadley had been booked into the county jail 21 times since 2000, mainly on drug and alcohol-related charges.
When handing down the prison sentence last year, Circuit Judge John Putman ordered Hadley to have no contact with the two victims. However, at the request of his mother, the no contact order was modified to allow her to visit her son in prison.
Hadley is currently an inmate in the North Central Unit of the state prison system in Calico Rock.
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