A Phillips County man tried as a juvenile in 2011 in connection with the death of a Jefferson County youth detention facility guard was sentenced to a total of 18 years, 10 months in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to two federal gun charges nearly two years ago.
Nicholas "Crucial Cujo" Dismuke, 27, of Helena-West Helena, pleaded guilty Jan. 15, 2020, before U.S. Judge James M. Moody Jr. to one count each of being a felon in possession of firearms and possession and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. On Thursday, Moody sentenced Dismuke to 46 months on the felon in possession of a firearm count and 15 years for the brandishing count, with the 15-year sentence to run consecutively to a 24-year sentence he is currently serving in Arkansas for armed robbery and a 25-year sentence he has yet to serve in Missouri for an armed robbery conviction there. Moody ordered the 46-month sentence to run concurrently to the state-imposed sentences.
The federal gun charges stemmed from a 2015 robbery during which Dismuke threatened a store clerk in Helena-West Helena with a gun.
In June 2011, the state Supreme Court ruled that Dismuke had to be tried as a minor in the Jan. 30, 2010, beating death of Leonard "Sandy" Wall, a security guard at the Jack Jones Juvenile Justice Center in Pine Bluff. Dismuke was 15 at the time of Wall's death, which occurred as Dismuke and two others escaped from the lockup.
Dismuke's attorney, Misty Borkowski, argued Thursday before Moody for a minimal sentence to run concurrently with his current sentences in Arkansas and Missouri, which would leave open the possibility he could be released from prison as early as 2027 in Arkansas and by 2038 in Missouri.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters, in a sentencing memorandum filed Dec. 3, said the conduct that led to Dismuke's conviction occurred at the end of a violent, three-week crime rampage during which he robbed four convenience stores in Arkansas and a pawnshop in Missouri, firing shots at the pawnshop manager and terrorizing store employees by pointing a gun in their faces.
Borkowski called two expert witnesses -- Tricia Russell, a mitigation supervisor for the Federal Public Defenders Office in Little Rock, and Benjamin Silver, a forensic and licensed clinical psychologist -- who both testified as to how severe childhood trauma had affected Dismuke. She said he was placed into foster care and later adopted by his foster family -- Donna and MacArthur Dismuke -- but spent his childhood from age 7 to 13 shuffling between inpatient behavioral therapy facilities and home.
"I think his foster parents were wonderful people," Russell said. "I think they tried their best ... but I think they were unprepared to deal with a child with such a traumatic background."
Russell said in her research into Dismuke's background, she discovered that his biological mother suffered from severe mental illness and that she attempted suicide by a drug overdose when she was pregnant with Dismuke, tried to suffocate him when he was 4 months old and later sold two of his siblings to a Mississippi woman to settle a drug debt. She said Dismuke began acting out at the age of 7 after he was told that his biological mother had tried to kill him when he was a baby.
"Seven is tiny," Russell said. "You still have your baby teeth at 7. You still believe in Santa at 7. ... In my years of experience I've not seen a child sent to this many institutions this frequently."
Silver testified that he had determined that of 50 risk factors indicative of delinquent behavior compiled by the Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency, Dismuke had an "exceptionally high" number of those risk factors.
"He had 43 out of 50 factors that I was able to find evidence for," Silver said. "In my own clinical experience conducting evaluations of individuals like himself, 43 is ... far higher than what I typically see even for individuals who have criminal histories and are currently in prison or headed to prison."
Another measure, Silver said, are 10 factors called Adverse Childhood Events, known as ACE factors.
"Like the 50 factors, the fewer of these factors you have, the more likely you are to be financially stable when you're older, to be healthy when you're older," he said. "You're also less likely to be incarcerated or to commit criminal offenses when you're older."
Silver said the highest number of ACE factors most people have is four.
"In this case he actually had 7 out of 10, which is quite high," he said. "Those who have four or more ACE factors are at a 380% greater risk of committing an offense in the future."
Peters noted that since his imprisonment in 2015, Dismuke had accumulated numerous rules violations, including at least 12 instances of masturbating in front of guards at the prison.
"In prison, conduct that might be considered normal outside is criminalized," Russell said.
But Peters countered by saying the prison incidents had happened while Dismuke stood at the front of his cell calling out to female guards and in one case, actually masturbating onto a female guard, which she said earned him a felony conviction.
"This kind of behavior would result in criminal convictions in the outside world, too, wouldn't it?" Peters asked.
As Russell considered the question, Moody broke in.
"I can reach that conclusion myself without her opinion," the judge said.
In asking Moody to sentence Dismuke to 30 years on the charge of brandishing a firearm, Peters recounted Dismuke's history of sexually abusing his younger siblings, committing robberies, the beating death of Wall and assaults on other guards, as well as his history of assaulting guards while in prison.
"If ever there were a case to do it," she said, "this is the case.
"At age 23 he's in custody but he continues this behavior of assaulting prison guards by masturbating in front of them...," Peters continued. "What happens to the victims when he's out of prison ... when there are no bars to protect them?"
Citing the testimony of Russell and Silver as he announced the sentence Moody said "nothing they have said gives me pause or any comfort that Mr. Dismuke is not a severe danger to the public."
Moody said with the 15-year federal sentence stacked on top of the two state sentences he must serve, Dismuke will not be free again until at least 2053, when he is 59 years old.