Hale Trial May Face More Delays

A cardiologist has found significant heart problems that could force Whitewater figure David Hale to stay in a hospital another week, Hale's lawyer says.

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Hale went to Baptist Medical Center last Thursday complaining of heart troubles about an hour before opening arguments were to start in his trial.

"If it's at all possible, we'd like to go forward, because we like this jury. We just don't know whether he's going to be available [Thursday]," said Hale lawyer David Bowden. "He's not feeling as bad, but he's probably still just as bad from what the doctors are saying, as far as the underlying condition."

A cardiologist determined Monday that Hale has a significant problem with his heart rhythm, Bowden said.

Hale was a key witness in the 1996 trial of then-Governor Jim Guy Tucker and James and Susan McDougal, business partners of President Clinton and his wife.

Hale had a defibrillator installed last summer while in prison. He served about 21 months of a 28-month sentence for fraud before being released in March. He remains on three years' probation.

Hale had asked about a half-dozen state and federal courts to halt his state trial, claiming it was retaliation for helping Whitewater prosecutors. He also claimed that immunity granted by his federal plea agreement should have shielded him from the state charge.

In a one-sentence order Monday, the full U.S. Supreme Court echoed Justice Clarence Thomas, who on April 21 also denied Hale's request to delay the trial. After Thomas' decision, Hale's lawyers had resubmitted the request to Justice David H. Souter, who then referred it to the full court.

The trial began last Wednesday with jury selection. The following day, it was delayed until this Thursday because of Hale's health and a scheduling conflict for a prosecution witness.

After the delay was ordered, the state prosecutor asked a judge to let an independent cardiologist examine Hale's medical records.

Bowden said Hale has an 80 percent blockage of one coronary artery.

Stress tests on Hale "showed a cardiac arrhythmia of a type or quality that is not readily corrected by the cardiac defibrillator," Bowden wrote in court documents Monday.

The heart problem sometimes causes a drop in blood pressure, "resulting in a fainting or sinking sensation, and is of a type capable of eing induced by physical or mental stress," Bowden said.