Little Rock bank-heist suspect, 16, now faces juvenile trial

The 16-year-old Little Rock boy who police say planned the June armed robbery of a Simmons Bank branch will be prosecuted in juvenile court, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson ruled on Thursday.

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Prosecutors had charged Terry Hamilton as an adult with aggravated robbery and theft, charges he shares with his co-defendant, 20-year-old Antonio Lee Griffin, after police said the pair admitted to the holdup at the bank on Chenal Parkway.

Before the judge ruled, deputy prosecutor Adam Childers and defense attorney Willard Proctor argued over the effectiveness of the juvenile-justice system.

Childers cited an apparent recent upswing in crimes by youthful offenders. Significant numbers of those teens in Pulaski County already had been through the juvenile-justice system, he said.

The prosecutor also pointed to testimony that showed the national recidivism rate is about 60 percent. Arkansas does not track recidivism, and the effectiveness of its programs has been called into question.

Proctor countered by pointing to program successes that have kept troubled teens from acquiring criminal records while helping them learn the skills to be productive citizens.

Proctor also pointed to a growing recognition by the courts of the differences in biology between teen offenders and adult criminals.

The criminal-justice system has come to realize that teenage brains are still developing, making them more susceptible to rehabilitation efforts, he told the judge.

The judge said he would transfer the case to the juvenile-justice system because he thought Hamilton could be rehabilitated.

He said he would certify the case against Hamilton under the Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction Act, which requires that a judge evaluate the defendant before his 21st birthday to determine whether he has been rehabilitated.

If he has not been rehabilitated by then, Hamilton could be sentenced to prison.

The judge also told the sides that he could not be swayed by arguments about how well the system works.

He has to make each decision about each juvenile defendant on the basis of what he thinks is right for that individual, he said.

The state has effective rehabilitation programs, but the best predictor of their success is whether the teen and his family commit to it, the judge said.

"If he doesn't do it, it's not on me; it's on him," Johnson said. "It's not on the system."

Hamilton's father, Talonzo Davis, wept as he testified about how he had brought his family of five to Little Rock three years ago from New York City, thinking Arkansas would be a better place to raise them. He said he might not have been as focused on his son as he should have been at the time of the bank robbery because of the death of his own mother four or five months ago.

"I don't want to lose my kid to the street," Davis told the judge. "I was lost for a minute. Maybe I lost track of him."

Davis said his son was a good, obedient and respectful child who must have succumbed to peer pressure. Davis said he knows both Griffin and his brother but wasn't sure how Griffin and Hamilton had met.

Davis said he would have intervened if he'd seen any signs his son was headed for trouble with the law.

Hamilton has never been in trouble before, either with the law or at school, Davis said. The teen was expelled from Joe T. Robinson Middle School because of his arrest but is studying to get his high school diploma, Davis told the judge.

Police detective Chris Johnson testified that two masked men dressed in black, one carrying a shotgun, stormed the bank with the shotgun wielder jumping onto a bank counter to demand money from bank manager Christina Jones, 33.

The two fled with an undisclosed amount of money.

Johnson said Hamilton admitted that he was the one who came up with the idea to rob the bank, planned how to do it and bought the shotgun.

Griffin told police he carried the gun during the holdup, out of concern that Hamilton couldn't handle the weapon, Johnson testified.

No one was seriously hurt although one customer, 57-year-old Kim Hoffman of Roland, was forced to the ground and robbed of her Coach wallet by Hamilton, police said.

The two were arrested within about 30 minutes of the robbery about three blocks away at the Chapel Ridge Apartments on Chenal Parkway, where they were neighbors, arrest reports show.

Johnson said they had used Hamilton's mother's white Chevrolet Impala for the holdup.

Hamilton had some of the bank's money on him when he was arrested, the detective told the judge.

Metro on 08/26/2016

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