James Edmond Hinton III's attorney admitted from the start of Wednesday's trial that his client had done bad things.
The 20-year-old Little Rock man had stolen, he'd lied and he'd carried a gun, defense attorney Lew Marczuk told a Pulaski County jury.
Hinton did all of those things while taking part in the September 2012 robbery of a college student in Little Rock, Marczuk said. Hinton knew prison was in his immediate future, the lawyer told the eight women and four men.
But most important was what Hinton had not done; he had not committed aggravated robbery as he was charged with, the lawyer said.
"I told you from the get-go, it's not a whodunit. The young man does not expect to go home," Marczuk said in his closing argument. "I expect you to find him guilty. This man took part in a criminal episode. This is a robbery. It is not an aggravated robbery."
Deputy prosecutor Hugh Finkelstein accused Marczuk of trying to gull jurors into disregarding the law. He said Hinton's admissions to police about how he helped steal a laptop computer from Samuel Shelton by pushing the University of Arkansas at Little Rock student into some bushes in a snatch-and-run encounter while carrying a pistol showed Hinton had committed aggravated robbery.
"His client is really guilty. He [Marczuk] just doesn't want to admit it," the prosecutor said. "He doesn't have a defense."
Jurors in Circuit Judge Leon Johnson's courtroom took about 15 minutes Wednesday to side with Finkelstein, finding Hinton guilty of aggravated robbery, theft and possession of a defaced firearm. Sentencing him to 15 years in prison took jurors about an hour and 20 minutes. He faced a minimum of 10 years.
Hinton will have to serve 10 1/2 years before he can qualify for parole. If he'd been convicted of robbery instead of aggravated robbery, he would have qualified for early release in 3 3/4 years.
His co-defendant, 20-year-old Cortez Kendrick of Sweet Home, pleaded guilty last year to robbery, reduced from aggravated robbery, in exchange for five years on probation, four months in jail and a $1,500 fine.
Deputy prosecutor Jill Kamps told jurors that Hinton and Kendrick had been outsmarted by Shelton and his friends, Christopher Dunbar and Tyler Kent. Shelton had made arrangements through Craigslist to sell his brand-new MacBook Pro, then had refused efforts by the would-be buyer to make the exchange anywhere but the school's Trojan Grill, Kamps said.
Shelton, an engineering student, told jurors he agreed to meet the buyer and brought along four friends for security, among them Dunbar and Kent. Kendrick grabbed the laptop and started to run, handing off the device to Hinton, who flashed a gun, according to testimony.
Kent and Shelton chased the robbers as they ran off campus with the laptop. Shelton eventually led campus police to a home at 3003 S. Tyler St. where Hinton was hiding in bushes, with the pistol found nearby.
Dunbar had been surreptitiously watching his friends' meeting with the robbers and called campus police when the exchange turned violent. He described how Hinton had twice shown the pistol, once pointing the weapon at him, during the encounter and had violently shoved Shelton to the ground while trying to get away.
Hinton did not testify during the evidentiary portion of the trial, so jurors didn't learn until after they had convicted him that Hinton has been sent to prison twice for three other Craigslist-related thefts in the month before the UALR robbery.
In each of those cases, Hinton had responded to Craigslist ads pretending to be a buyer, only to snatch the merchandise and run when he met with the sellers. Before his arrest for the robbery, Hinton had always been able to outrun his victims. He was not identified as the thief in those other cases until his arrest after the UALR robbery.
In June 2013, Hinton was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution for stealing a diamond ring from 36-year-old Kevin Fletcher of Little Rock on Aug. 28, 2012, at the Ashley Square Shopping Center at 901 Towne Oaks Drive.
In August 2013, Hinton was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay $5,200 in restitution for stealing a diamond ring from Andrew Hill, 35, of Little Rock, when they met at 9400 Stagecoach Road, and for taking an Apple MacBook from Brandon Evans, 21, of Sherwood, during their Aug. 18, 2012, meeting at 10320 Stagecoach Road.
Metro on 09/16/2014