The Arkansas Parole Board is recommending a commutation for a man locked up for 34 years for a capital murder conviction out of Pulaski County.
The agency on Friday made the recommendation for 57-year-old Charles Lewis Wallace, who was also convicted of kidnapping in the death of Calvin Smith.
Prosecutors alleged that in 1977 Wallace forced Smith to leave a restaurant parking lot and took him to the shoreline of the Arkansas River, where Smith was drowned.
The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Wallace's 1979 conviction in 1980, turning away arguments that he wasn't tried quickly enough and that jury instructions were flawed.
Wallace has been in state prison since 1979.
The sentence would have to be commuted by Gov. Mike Beebe.