A teenage carjacker drew a minimal prison sentence Tuesday from Pulaski County jurors who heard he was born drug-addicted with low intellectual functioning then neglected for most of his childhood by a drug-abusing mother and absentee father.
The six men and six women of the jury deliberated about 35 minutes before imposing the 11-year prison sentence on Brandon Deangelo Davis, who was 17 at the time of the holdup.
Ten years was the minimum penalty for the charge of aggravated robbery while using a gun. With credit for time served, the 19-year-old Davis will be able to qualify for parole before he turns 25. He faced a 55-year maximum.
Davis, who did not testify during the one-day trial before Circuit Judge Herb Wright, still has legal troubles to face.
He's scheduled to stand trial again next week on a first-degree battery charge over accusations he shot and severely wounded his uncle, 37-year-old Henderson Session, in May 2013.
Davis had been charged as an accomplice with first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree battery over accusations he participated in the January 2013 shootings that killed a 17-year-old girl, Jasmine Simone Young, and wounded two others with her, Sydne Blocker, now 20, and Kyron Richardson, now 21.
The killing occurred about two weeks after the carjacking episode he was convicted for Tuesday.
Two other men, 26-year-old Charles Edward Robinson III and 19-year-old Keith Plummer, have each pleaded guilty to the slaying and shooting charges and are now in prison.
Davis had admitted to driving the men to the scene, the Site convenience store on Asher Avenue, and to being present during the shootings, which authorities said began as a gunfight between Robinson and at least two other men.
Prosecutors dropped those charges Tuesday. But they wanted to show jurors at sentencing a surveillance video from the homicide they said showed a gun-toting Davis running from the site of the shooting.
Deputy prosecutor Amanda Fields said the video would give jurors a better idea of how Davis conducted himself around the time of the carjacking, but the judge, acting on the objection of defense attorney Willard Proctor, would not allow them to play the video for the jury.
Proctor, who disputed that his client could be seen with a gun in the video, argued the recording would do more to make his client look bad than it would show jurors anything about Davis' character.
Jurors deliberated about 30 minutes Tuesday to find Davis guilty, rejecting defense arguments that he was the victim of mistaken identity.
Deputy prosecutor Alex Betton called the case "straightforward," saying that Davis' fingerprints found on the stolen car combined with the testimony of the car's owner, 27-year-old Shana Henderson, that Davis was the robber could only add up to a guilty verdict.
"They come together as one and show his guilt," Betton told jurors. "All the evidence leads to Mr. Davis."
At sentencing, Davis' aunt cried as she begged jurors not to throw him away "like trash." Raising six children of her own, Sheila Davis, 43, testified she struggled to help provide for her nephew while his mother, her sister, struggled with crack cocaine addiction for years, regularly leaving the boy unattended and unfed.
Her nephew was essentially raised by his sister, who was only a few years older than him, Davis testified.
"We failed him," she said, weeping. "I should have been more in his life to show him right from wrong."
Brandon Davis had been born with marijuana and alcohol in his system, which has affected his brain development, his mother, Angela Davis, testified, saying that she regularly neglected her children because of her drug abuse, which has sent her to prison at least twice.
She said he had been diagnosed as a boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and was medicated in school, although his behavioral problems led to him being expelled. He started "running the streets" at age 16 and fell in with a bad crowd, she told the jury.
The defense also showed jurors some of Brandon Davis' medical records showing he had been diagnosed with autism and low-intellectual functioning.
Metro on 08/05/2015