LITTLE ROCK — A Pulaski County circuit judge Tuesday restricted the evidence that prosecutors can use against two men whom authorities say were members of a group that randomly shot a Jacksonville couple as part of a gang initiation. The ruling by Judge Herb Wright could seriously damage the case against the pair, a prosecutor said.
Nehemiah Armstrong, 23, of Little Rock and Dominique Jamal Givens, 20, are two of four defendants charged in a pair of January shootings in Sherwood and Jacksonville, and prosecutors had sought to use evidence from both cases against the pair at trial next month over the Jacksonville shootings. Deputy prosecutor Jennifer Waymack argued at Tuesday’s hearing that the evidence in the shootings, such as shell casings and defendants’ statements to police, are so tied together that prosecutors should be allowed to use evidence from both cases against the men.
The Jan. 4 shooting that wounded Jacksonville residents Rodney and Marie Dozier as the couple were watching TV in their living room went unsolved until a Sherwood police probe of a Jan. 20 shooting at a home in that town, Waymack told the judge.
No one was injured in the Sherwood shooting, but that investigation led authorities to Armstrong and Givens, she said. A gun used in both crimes reportedly was found in Armstrong’s home. He has admitted to being at both shootings and having a gun, she said, although his attorney is challenging the legality of those statements. Givens has also given statements to police implicating himself, she said. In interviews with police, the defendants talk about both shootings so much that it’s difficult to separate the cases, she said.
“They are so intertwined,” she said. “It is the same gun in both of these.”
But Wright sided with defense attorneys Jimmy Morris Jr. and Fernando Padilla, who argued that the cases are not similar enough to allow evidence from one to be used in the other. Court rules allow prosecutors to use evidence of unproven crimes against defendants if the criminal allegations are similar enough.
But Morris said prosecutors’ theories about the motives in the two cases are too different.
Authorities believe the Dozier shooting was part of a robbery attempt, while the Sherwood shooting was an attempt at revenge over a fight, but the gunmen shot up the wrong house.
“They’re saying one is a robbery and the other is for revenge for getting beaten up,” Morris told the judge.
The gunmen in both shootings used different tactics in firing into the homes, further making the cases too dissimilar for prosecutors to use together, Morris said.
The judge’s ruling separating the cases would hamper prosecutors in their efforts to explain how Armstrong became a suspect and restrict them from showing jurors how police obtained evidence against him, Waymack told the judge. Prosecutors can appeal the decision but didn’t say Tuesday whether they would.
The pair, with two other men, each face eight counts of committing a terroristic act and four counts of first-degree battery over the Jan. 4 shooting at the Dozier home and seven counts of terroristic act over the Jan. 20 shooting in Sherwood.
In the Dozier shooting, Waymack said, Armstrong loaned his gun to 19-year-old Corinthian Parker of Jacksonville, who fired into the house, striking both of the Doziers twice. Police say the men picked the couple’s home off the Internet as an apparently easy target and that the real motive for the shooting was to determine the hierarchy of a gang that the defendants were organizing.
In the Sherwood shooting, Armstrong had argued with a man on Woodberry Lane, then went and got his friends and returned to shoot up the house, Waymack said, but they picked the wrong residence.
Parker faces charges similar to those Armstrong and Givens face in both cases. His attorney announced Tuesday that he is exploring a possible insanity defense.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 07/28/2010