Suspended attorney accused of hiding knife in Texarkana stabbing loses her lawyer weeks before trial

TEXARKANA, Ark. — A suspended Arkansas attorney accused of hiding the knife used in a stabbing at a Texarkana convenience store asked a Miller County judge on Tuesday for a state-appointed lawyer, a day after telling a Little Rock judge she plans to represent herself in a separate felony case there. Both courts let the same attorney withdraw after he said she had asked him to do things he considered “morally repugnant,” court records show.

Circuit Judge Brent Haltom on Tuesday let Little Rock attorney Jimmy C. Morris Jr. withdraw from Zoe Charise Jackson’s felony evidence-tampering case after hearing testimony, according to the judge’s record of the hearing. Jackson, 29, asked for a lawyer from the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, and the judge noted the commission would provide one “knowing that case will be continued past Oct. 26,” the date her jury trial had been set.

“A disagreement has arisen between the undersigned counsel and Defendant regarding the manner in which this matter should be defended, resulting in a breakdown of the attorney-client relationship,” Morris wrote in a motion filed Oct. 1. “Defendant has requested that counsel take certain actions that counsel believes may violate his legal and ethical obligations or that counsel considers morally repugnant.”

The motion does not say what Jackson asked him to do. Morris filed an amended version the next day asking the court to disregard an exhibit he said was attached to the first motion by mistake and was “unrelated to this matter.”

Morris filed a nearly identical motion Oct. 3 in Pulaski County Circuit Court, where Jackson is charged with second-degree domestic battery, a Class C felony, and misdemeanor refusal to submit to arrest over a Jan. 29 incident. Circuit Judge Leon Johnson relieved him at a hearing Monday. The judge’s docket note says Jackson did not object, that she “is moving to proceed pro se,” and that Nov. 4, the date that had been set for her jury trial, will instead be a status hearing on who represents her. That case is filed under the name Zoe Harris, with Zoe Jackson listed as an alias, and the court entered a no-contact order in April.

Jackson is charged with tampering with physical evidence, a Class D felony that carries up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine, and misdemeanor possession of less than four ounces of marijuana. She pleaded not guilty May 19.

Texarkana Arkansas police arrested Jackson on March 3 after a FedEx delivery driver was stabbed at the E-Z Mart at 3401 E. Ninth St. Police said the man who stabbed the driver dropped the knife and ran, and that Jackson, who was with him, picked up the knife and hid it in her vehicle. Detectives later identified the suspect as Markavion Whitmore, 19, who is charged with second-degree battery in a case filed April 24 in Miller County Circuit Court. His case is pending.

The stabbing happened the day after a Miller County jury convicted Jackson’s client Kahim Webster of first-degree murder and terroristic act in the October 2024 shooting death of a 17-year-old at an East 35th Street apartment complex. Webster was sentenced to 40 years on the murder count and 20 years on each terroristic act count, with the sentences running consecutively.

Prosecuting Attorney Connie Mitchell asked for a special prosecutor two weeks after the arrest, writing that her office had “a specific and unavoidable conflict.” Jackson and another person stopped at the store the day after the Webster trial ended, “where an altercation took place,” Mitchell wrote. “Ms. Jackson’s passenger stabbed a customer in the store. After the incident, Ms. Jackson removed the weapon from the scene. It is believed that the victim was associated with a State’s witness in the murder trial. It is also believed the suspect was an associate of Ms. Jackson.”

Mitchell also disclosed that she had filed a complaint against Jackson with the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Office of Professional Conduct “for intimidating a witness” during the murder trial. Circuit Judge Wren Autrey, who presided over that trial, sanctioned Jackson four times in its final week, according to docket notes: a $500 fine Feb. 25, a $1,000 fine and a contempt finding Feb. 26 after she arrived at 10 a.m., and contempt findings with $500 fines on Feb. 27 and on March 2, the day of the verdict.

On March 6, the Office of Professional Conduct placed Jackson on interim suspension from practicing law for “serious misconduct.” The order said she posed “a substantial threat of serious harm to the public and to her clients” if she kept practicing, the Texarkana Gazette reported.

A circuit judge granted the request for a special prosecutor March 24, and Robbie Jones was appointed April 2. Jones filed the formal charges April 10. Autrey, who had been assigned the case, recused the same day, and the clerk’s random draw sent it to Haltom.

Haltom is the judge who jailed Jackson for contempt in March 2025 after she told him she would not return that afternoon for a client’s jury trial and then did not. He ordered her held in the Miller County jail from March 26 until March 31, 2025, and to repay the county $1,515 for the jury panel that showed up for nothing. The Arkansas Court of Appeals upheld the contempt finding Feb. 18, rejecting her argument that she was denied due process. “The circuit court specifically notified Jackson that if she did not appear for trial, the court would hold her in contempt,” Judge Raymond Abramson wrote. “Jackson responded that she understood.”

Mitchell’s office separately charged Jackson in district court with obstructing governmental operations over the same no-show. Jackson pleaded guilty to that charge March 11 and was sentenced to 30 days in the Miller County jail, according to Mitchell’s motion.

Jackson’s bond on the tampering charge was set at $50,000 at her first court appearance March 4, and a bail bond company posted it. A handwritten note at the bottom of the first-appearance record, next to the prosecutor’s bond recommendation, says Jackson “has a history of failing to appear in court in her capacity of attorney” and as a defendant, that she “is currently on bond for dom. batt. 2nd in Little Rock, Arkansas,” and that there was “an investigation into tampering with a witness in a murder trial.” The Pulaski County file shows a $2,500 bond was written for her Feb. 3, five weeks before prosecutors there filed charges.

Jackson filed an affidavit of indigency in May, and the judge’s notes from her arraignment say he discussed a public defender with her. Morris entered the case eight days later. In June he asked for more time to review “a substantial amount of discovery,” and Haltom reset the trial from July 27 to Oct. 26. That date will now be pushed back again while the public defender commission assigns a lawyer. The commission is to prepare the order relieving Morris.

The Texarkana Gazette reported Wednesday that Jackson is “moving to proceed pro se” and has a Nov. 4 court date. Those details appear in the Pulaski County record, not the Miller County one, where the judge’s note says she “still requests” a lawyer from the commission.

Jackson was licensed to practice law in Arkansas in 2022. Her former client in the 2025 contempt case, Demon Richardson, pleaded guilty in July to three counts of aggravated assault with a different attorney and was sentenced to six years in prison on each count.