The Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday said Circuit Judge Jodi Raines Dennis was correct when she revoked the suspended sentence of a Pine Bluff man and sentenced him to prison.
Donnell Thomas had pleaded guilty in 2018 to aggravated assault on a family or household ember, first-degree terroristic threatening and being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 72 months suspended imposition of sentence on condition that he obey all federal and state laws. He was also ordered not to have a firearm or be in the company of anyone with a firearm.
In 2020 he was charged with second offense third-degree domestic battery and as a result of that charge, prosecutors filed a petition to revoke his suspended sentence. While that was pending, he was charged with three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm after an incident in November of 2022.
In August of 2023, a hearing was held on the revocation petition and two Pine Bluff Police officers testified that they had answered a report of shots fired call and saw Thomas with a gun in his hand and threatened to shoot them if they stepped on his property.
Police served a search warrant at Thomas’ reported address and found spent shell casings, holsters, cartridges and bullets but did not find a gun. His friend did tell police that he had seen Thomas with a gun.
In his appeal, Thomas tried to question the identification by the officers but the appeals court disagreed.
