The second of two men accused of a 2012 Little Rock slaying pleaded guilty to first-degree murder Thursday.
Jerard Ele Ball, 21, of Little Rock accepted a 20-year prison term for the October 2012 shooting death of Charles Hall Jr. The 27-year-old Star City man was found fatally wounded behind the wheel of a still-running Oldsmobile Cutlass on Fair Park Boulevard with a gun on the floorboard.
Deputy prosecutor Scott Duncan told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson that Ball fired the fatal shot. Ball was arrested almost exactly one year after the shooting.
The defendant, represented by attorney Omar Greene, pleaded guilty in exchange for the 20-year sentence that will require him to serve 14 years before he can apply for parole.
As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors also dropped three charges of committing a terroristic act, each representing a bullet fired into Hall's car.
Ball, who has claimed to be a member of the Bloods street gang, is already serving a 10-year sentence for residential burglaries at the Daley Circle home of Laquista Kinney in March 2012 and at the Stardust Trail home of Chondra Goldsmith in February 2013.
That sentence also includes his conviction for theft by force for taking $500 from Paul Brown in a separate incident in April 2012.
Kidnapping and aggravated-robbery charges against Ball and a co-defendant, 26-year-old Cornelius Henry Pittman, were dropped in that case.
Pittman pleaded guilty to fleeing in exchange for five years on probation.
Ball's co-defendant in the murder case, 19-year-old Etavious James Smith, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree murder, in December and accepted a 20-year sentence, which will require him to serve at least five years before he can qualify for parole.
Metro on 05/20/2015