Petition for rehearing denied for Tait, files petition for review

A former Tahlequah doctor's petition for a rehearing in his murder conviction was denied by the Arkansas Court of Appeals Dec. 4.

Tyler Tait was convicted in 2023 of second-degree murder for the death of local nurse, Moria Kinsey.

On Oct. 11, 2021, Kinsey was found unresponsive on the ground next to Tait’s vehicle on U.S. Highway 65. According to reports, Tait claimed Kinsey was suffering from a seizure. She was transported to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Investigators noticed bruising around Kinsey’s neck.

"In addition to [Tait's] own testimony, he presented expert testimony inter alia that what was supposedly evidence of strangulation instead were artifacts of the unsuccessful medical intervention," stated in the petition.

Special agents examined the vehicle in which Tait and Kinsey had been traveling from Mississippi to Tahlequah, and found evidence of a physical altercation inside.

According to court documents, the medical examiner asserts strangulation, and statements made by the prosecuting attorney to Tait’s attorneys alleged Kinsey’s cause of death was a “karate chop.”

On Dec. 5, Tait filed a petition for review wherein he presented three issues on appeal from his second-degree murder conviction.

"One issue in particular implicates Rule 1- 2(b)(2): '(I)ssues upon which there is a perceived inconsistency in the decisions of the Court of Appeals or Supreme Court.' The decision in Tait is clearly inconsistent with the doctrine enunciated in Doby v. State, 290 Ark. 408, 720 S.W.2d 694 (1986), and reiterated numerous times thereafter: That an instruction on a lesser offense should not be given when the defendant asserts complete innocence," stated in the petition.

Tait must serve 25 percent of his 30-year sentence before he is eligible for parole.