Killer receives 40 years in prison

LR judge rejects self-defense claim

— A Pulaski County Circuit judge handed down a 40-year, no-parole prison sentence to a Pine Bluff man who killed his sister’s boyfriend over a dispute about a necklace, telling David Hugh Jones Jr. his claim that he had no choice but to shoot the man didn’t make sense.

“I just don't see the justification in this fighting,” said Judge Marion Humphrey after pronouncing Jones guilty of first-degree murder after a four-hour, nonjury trial. “You just can’t do it the way you want to do it.”

Jones testified Monday, 12 days before his 28th birthday, that he opened fire on Anthony Ladon “Little Ant” Harris because Harris refused to back down after Jones pulled a gun on him to break up a fight between Harris and Jones’ sister, Maya Harshaw. Harris repeatedly threatened to call others to come back and help him killboth Jones and his sister, Jones said.

“That’s why I pulled the gun, to break this up,” Jones said. “He said, ‘I’ll make you shoot me ... We’ll shoot everybody up.’”

Jones had been out of prison less than a year after completing a 10-year sentence when he killed Harris. He pleaded guilty to first-degree battery in 1997 for shooting a man in the stomach who had confronted him after finding him with his sister. That earlier violent-crime conviction makes Jones ineligible for parole.

Jones, taking the stand against the advice of his attorney, testified that Harris, with two other men, Jesse Anderson and Carnell “Pooh” Plummer, rushed him, saying that he couldn’t back down because the three might be armed. Questioned by deputy prosecutor Marianne Satterfield, Jones acknowledged he never saw any of the men with a gun, but said that didn’t mean they didn’t have weapons.

“I wasn’t going to walk back to my room with these guys all belligerent,” he testified. “Three people is a weapon to me. They probably was just all talk. I wish I would’ve known that. I’m sorry to the family and society and all that, but they made me do it.”

Harshaw, testifying for her brother, told the judge that Harris and his friends claimed they were going to get someone with a “chopper,” slang for an assault rifle, to come kill them.She said the dispute started when she accused Harris of stealing her necklace after they spent the night together. Harris, who Harshaw described as an occasional boyfriend, told her he took the chain because she owed him half of the $40 nightly rent for the room, a $20 debt she disputed, Harshaw testified.

Plummer, a prosecution witness, told the judge that Harris hadn’t been intimidated by Jones’ gun, but Plummer disputed the claim that anyone threatened to call someone to come shoot Harshaw and Harris. That’s not the kind of threat you make at gunpoint, Plummer said.

“Why are you going to tell that to someone who’s got a pistol on you?” he testified.

Defense attorney Courtney McLarty argued that Jones was more guilty of manslaughter than murder because Harris had rushed him. She asked the judge to consider Jones’ state of mind, as a felon sentenced at 16 who had witnessed violence at home, in his neighborhood and in prison. Jones also had cause to be extra fearful, she said, because an unknown assailant had shot him in the back in December 2007.

Satterfield asked the judge to reject the argument that Jones had reason to shoot Harris. Jones could’ve left or called the police instead, she argued.

“It’s not a reasonable belief to think someone who is threatening ... is going to do it,” she said. “Despite what this young man said, it doesn’t justify shooting him.”

In rejecting Jones’ claim,Humphrey also seemed puzzled by the man himself, noting that Jones testified he quit his first job after prison because he didn’t have a car and refused to ride the bus to work.

“I don’t know what your problem is,” the judge said. “You don’t get to do everything you want in life.”

Harris’ May 2008 killing at the Plantation Inn on Interstate 30 was captured on a security video. The homicide was the last straw for Little Rock authorities who won a judge’s order the next month shutting down the motel as a nuisance. In their lawsuit to shutter the property, city attorneys identified another 70 other criminal events that occurred at the motel in the 14 months leading up to Harris’ murder.

Harris was shot twice - once in the groin, with the killing shot delivered to the left side of his chest, piercing his lungs and aorta before exiting the center of his chest, testified Dr. Stephen Ericson, the state’s deputy medical examiner.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/22/2009

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