At 16, Charles Jackson was sentenced to life in prison for helping murder a Little Rock businessman. On Thursday, the now 42-year-old returned to court to start the process of receiving a new sentence, with the possibility he could one day be released.
With Jackson were two other men with similar hopes in similar circumstances -- all three of them having been convicted of capital murder as teenagers and sentenced to life without parole.
U.S. Supreme Court rulings have outlawed automatic life-without-parole sentences for teenagers under 18 convicted of capital murder, a decision that has made 55 Arkansas inmates eligible for new sentencing hearings, 17 from Pulaski County.
They can still be sentenced to life, and the high court's ruling does not affect their convictions.
It's not known whether the three men had ever met before Thursday's appearance before Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen. They are due to report back to court in two weeks for the judge to set their resentencing schedule after the Public Defender Commission has appointed attorneys for them.
Raymond Mack, 41, of Little Rock was 17 in September 1992 when he shot into a car carrying two men while trying to rob them at Ninth Street and Kirspel Place.
Driver Shawn Bob, 27, and passenger Anthony Wayne Salley, 22, had been in the neighborhood to buy drugs. Mack shot into the car after Bob refused to give up his money.
Bob, a college student who was attending the University of Arkansas at Little Rock on a full scholarship, was killed and Salley was wounded in the leg. Witnesses identified Mack to police, and Salley picked his photograph out of a lineup as the killer.
Prosecutors waived the death penalty at his September 1994 trial, leaving a life sentence the only option for the jury that convicted him after about two hours of deliberation.
Edward Little , 51, gunned down a Little Rock police detective, Noel Don McGuire, in May 1980 when Little was a 15 -year-old fugitive from Illinois riding in a stolen truck driven by a fellow teenage fugitive, David Russell Butler.
McGuire, 23, did not know when he pulled over the truck at the corner of Roosevelt Road and Arch Street that, 15 minutes earlier, Little had shot a clerk in the stomach while he and Butler robbed a convenience store 5921 E. Roosevelt.
Also unknown to the detective was that Little had shot another woman while robbing her of $15 in Missouri almost 10 hours before their fatal meeting.
McGuire was shot three times with a .38-caliber pistol but managed to crawl 20 feet back to his unmarked car and radio for help while also reporting the direction his killers had fled.
Little bragged after his arrest about how he had shot McGuire by firing his gun with one hand. He said Butler had praised him for killing the officer.
Little was convicted at trial six months later by a jury that rejected execution in favor of a life sentence, a decision the panel reached on the day before what would have been McGuire's 24th birthday.
In urging jurors to spare his life, Little's lawyers presented evidence of the teen's chaotic and difficult upbringing, with testimony that he had been physically abused by his father and by most of the other five men his mother went on to marry.
The defense also presented psychological testimony that Little could benefit from and be reformed through the structure of prison life. Jurors also heard a former state prison commissioner denounce the death penalty.
Butler, also of Illinois, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in December 1980 and accepted a life sentence rather than face the possibility of being sent to the electric chair.
Jackson's return to court on Thursday came four days before the 24th anniversary of the day he was sentenced to prison for helping another teenager, who was also his uncle, kill Charles Colclasure, a 47-year-old married father of three daughters.
Jackson was 15 when he helped kill Colclasure, which made him too young for the death penalty.
Jackson's uncle, Alvin Benal Jackson, was 19 when they killed Colclasure, and jurors spared him the death penalty in favor of life sentence at his April 1990 trial.
Alvin Jackson, however, would go on to be sentenced to die for the stabbing death of 41-year-old prison guard Scott Grimes in November 1995 at the Tucker Maximum Security Unit.
Colclasure was killed just as he was on the verge of opening his own company after working for 27 years at International Business Forms at 1600 E. 26th St.
Alvin Jackson said he and his nephew had been shooting squirrels in a nearby cemetery with a borrowed .22-caliber rifle when they saw Colclasure leaving the office.
He had just cleaned out his office on a Sunday night in July 1989 when the teens ambushed him in the parking lot, demanding his wallet and watch. When he tried to flee, they chased him, and Alvin Jackson shot him.
Colclasure briefly managed to hide from his tormentors, but the Jacksons found him again.
Alvin Jackson shot the businessman some more -- six times in total, using "rat shot" that left more than 40 pellets in his body.
Charles Jackson told police he used Colclasure's Buick to run over the man twice, breaking his pelvis, ribs and back.
Alvin Jackson told police that the victim was still breathing, had his eyes open and was "stuttering" when the teens put him into the trunk.
They drove the man to the the Arkansas River, where they threw him in. Colclasure had $9 in his wallet.
After throwing the body into the river, the teens stopped to buy sodas with $2 they found in the Buick's glove compartment before driving to England to get rid of the car.
Later that evening, they went back to International Business Forms and, using the office key from Colclasure's key ring, stole a TV, which police found at Alvin Jackson's home.
The older Jackson's attorneys blamed Charles Jackson for the fatal shooting, arguing that police had coerced the older teen into confessing.
Charles Jackson admitted to participating in the killing, but told jurors he had only gone along with it because he was afraid Alvin Jackson would kill him if he didn't. His lawyer argued for a conviction on a lesser murder charge.
Metro on 07/08/2016