FORT SMITH -- A 19-year-old member of the Slanga 96 gang was sentenced Thursday to 110 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 14 shooting death of a rival gang member.
Sebastian County Deputy Prosecutor Scott Houston said after court that Alberto Chavez could be eligible for parole in 25 years in the death of Justin Lopez, 18, who died from a single gunshot wound to the head.
Unlike his three-day jury trial where he appeared in court unbound and wearing civilian clothes, Chavez went before Circuit Judge Michael Fitzhugh for sentencing Thursday wearing the county jail's orange one-piece uniform, was handcuffed to a waist chain and wore shackles on his legs.
The jury of seven women and five men convicted Chavez on Wednesday of second-degree murder and seven counts of committing a terroristic act. After deliberating for an hour, the jury returned with a recommendation Chavez be sentenced to 30 years in prison on the murder conviction and to 40 years on the terroristic act counts that resulted Lopez's death.
Jurors also recommended that each of those sentences get an extra five years in prison because firearms were used in their commission. The jury recommended those sentences run consecutively for a total sentence of 80 years.
Consecutive sentences run one after the other. Concurrent sentences run together at the same time.
Fitzhugh also ordered Chavez to serve an additional 30 years on three of the other six terroristic act convictions, each with the firearms enhancement, also to run consecutively with the 80 years. Jurors had recommended the additional 30 years, but Fitzhugh could not pass down that sentence the way the jury had structured it on the verdict forms.
Before sentencing Chavez, Fitzhugh remarked on his criminal activities before Lopez's murder. He referred to Houston telling jurors during the sentencing phase of the trial that Chavez had been adjudicated as a juvenile delinquent in 2015 on charges of manslaughter and first-degree battery and that he had been released from custody a month before the Lopez shooting.
Fitzhugh said that, despite Chavez downplaying his role in Lopez's death, he believed Chavez knew what was going on and may have been one of the two shooters.
Co-defendant Jorge Chirinos, 17, had testified during Chavez's trial that Chavez fired an AR-15-style rifle into the trailer occupied by Lopez and that Bryan Porras, 20, fired an AK-47-style rifle. Police say they recovered 43 spent bullet casings at the scene and counted 22 bullets holes in the trailer.
A state firearms and tool mark examiner testified that a fragment of the bullet removed from Lopez's skull had been fired by the AR-15-style rifle.
Chavez said in a video statement shown to jurors during the trial that fellow gang member Ryan Oxford, 20, fired the AR-15-style rifle. Chavez admitted being at the scene when the shooting took place, but he was not armed and did not fire a weapon.
Porras was convicted Nov. 15 of first-degree murder in Lopez's death and with seven counts of committing a terroristic act. Based on the jury's recommendations, Fitzhugh sentenced Porras to 63 years for the murder, lesser sentences for the terroristic act counts and to another 34 years, to run consecutively with the murder sentence, for violating suspended sentences he received last year for five felony convictions.
Oxford is scheduled to go on trial Dec. 18 on charges of first-degree murder and seven counts of committing a terroristic act. Chirinos' trial is scheduled for Jan. 8.
State Desk on 12/01/2017