MEMPHIS, TN - 33-year-old Andre Robinson has been locked up in the Shelby County Jail for three days. 72 long hours spent behind bars because he was unable to pay the staggering $500,000 bond set by Judge Lee Coffee in what has become one of the Mid-South's most high-profile dog attack cases.
On Tuesday, November 3, 2009, with attorney Marvin Ballin representing him, Robinson went to court to try and get his bond reduced.
"It should never have been that high for that kind of charge," Ballin tells myEyewitnessNews.com. "This case did not follow the procedure it should have."
Shelby County Sheriff's deputies arrested Robinson on Saturday, October 31st, and charged him with aggravated assault after his three pit bulls mauled 62-year-old Helen Marshall. Investigators say she was on her daily walk early Thursday morning in her Cordova neighborhood when the animals attacked. Marshall was bitten more than 50 times on her hands and arms as she tried to shield her dog, Skye, from the jaws of the pit bulls.
"This is real hard on her," says Marshall's husband, Gene. "She gets tired real easily. But we wanted to be here for this."
The Marshalls were inside Judge Loyce Lambert-Ryan's courtroom when the decision was made to lower Robinson's bond to $50,000.
"We wished she would have kept it where it was," says Mr. Marshall, "but we understand the judge's decision. She did tell Mr. Robinson he can't have any pets. None. No dogs. Not even a cat, a rabbit or a snake."
The judge also said the two families are to have no contact with each other.
Andre Robinson's next appearance in criminal court is scheduled for November 30th. Gene Marshall has already contacted an attorney about taking Robinson to civil court.
"We have to," says Marshall. "I'm a school teacher and my wife's a data processor for a hospital. She can't work because her hands are so badly injured and the bills are piling up. I don't even want to think what the bill from The MED is going to be."
As for the question of how the dogs got loose before they attacked Helen Marshall, Attorney Ballin doesn't know.
"The dogs were in their cages," he says, "and somehow they got out of those cages."
Ballin acknowledges that his client does have a criminal past, including previous convictions for aggravated robbery and burglary. But Ballin says Andre Robinson has turned his life around.
"He's been out of jail for three years," says Ballin, "and he's had a job that entire time working for UT in the janitorial department. He and his wife both work. They're trying to lease-to-own their home. He didn't deserve that half million dollar bond."
Robinson's neighbors say those pit bulls have been a problem since the Robinsons moved into the subdivision about a year ago. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office confirms that deputies have responded to calls about the dogs running loose on at least two prior occasions.
And Eyewitness News learned that Robinson's former neighbors in Horn Lake, Mississippi filed similar complaints about his dogs with police there.
"They need to make an example of him," Horn Lake resident David Payne tells myEyewitnessNews.com. "That lady could have gotten killed. I don't know why she didn't. Well, I know. God protected her."
