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October 13, 2011

Testimony in Smallen case ruled valid

— Previous testimony against a Muskogee man charged with murder can be used in an upcoming jury trial in Cherokee County.

Robert Lee Smallen, 59, is accused of the July 12, 2007, fatal shooting of Ronny Dean Hall, 47, also of Muskogee.

Smallen’s first trial ended in a hung jury in 2009. Since then, a man who testified at the first trial was also charged with first-degree murder in the case. Testimony of Daniel Prentice Thornburg, 42, of Park Hill, was to be excluded from the second trial, but that exclusion has been overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Smallen, Hall and Thornburg were at the Horseshoe Bend area of Lake Tenkiller the day Hall was killed.

After the first trial, prosecutors also charged Thornburg with first-degree murder.

However, Thornburg has refused to testify in Smallen’s second trial and the prosecution planned to enter his prior testimony into evidence.

 

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