Boy on trial in 2017 slaying of clerk

TEXARKANA -- A trial is underway this week in Miller County for a boy accused of shooting a convenience store clerk to death in 2017.

Because the accused was only 12 when 21-year-old Christa Shockley was shot, the proceeding is closed and in-person media coverage prohibited.

Shockley was found dead on the floor of the E-Z Mart in Fouke by a Texarkana Gazette news carrier in the early hours of Feb. 2, 2017. The suspect was arrested just a few hours later at a Fouke public school.

Arkansas law does not allow for adult certification of children as young as the boy charged with capital murder in Shockley's death, Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Potter Barrett said.

Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson granted a request from prosecutors to give the suspect in Shockley's death the Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction designation and last year the Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed the designation.

If a suspect with the designation is adjudicated guilty, a judge may order that person to be held until age 18, Barrett said in a previous interview. Upon turning 18, such offenders are routinely placed in a facility that houses only those offenders age 18 to 21.

Before a defendant's 21st birthday, a hearing to address future imprisonment must be conducted and a decision to move the offender to an adult prison at age 21 may result. The boy accused in Shockley's death faces 10 to 40 years or life in prison with parole possible, Barrett said.

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