A 19-year-old Palestine, Texas, man received a 55-year prison sentence for aggravated robbery Thursday following a jury trial in Miller County, Ark.
Chavell Terrell Jemison was found guilty of aggravated robbery in the Jan. 9, 2017, robbery of Circle K convenience store in Texarkana, Ark., and sentenced to 40 years. The jury found that Jemison used a firearm in commission of the robbery and sentenced him to a 15-year term, which by law must be served consecutively to the underlying offense of robbery, Circuit Judge Carlton Jones said.
Typically offenders must serve 70 percent of their sentence on a charge of aggravated robbery but Jemison will be parole eligible after 20 years because he was a few months shy of his 18th birthday at the time of the crime. The jury also found Jemison guilty of commercial burglary in connection with another offense committed the same day in Texarkana, Ark., and sentenced him to 10 years. The 10-year term will run at the same time as Jemison's 40-year term for robbery.
The jury acquitted Jemison on a charge of attempted capital murder.
Jemison and co-defendant LaTerrance Shaquan Traylor, 21, allegedly held a clerk at Circle K convenience store at gunpoint Jan. 9, according to a probable cause affidavit used to create the following account.
The clerk told investigators he was "rushed" by two men wearing masks who forced him to one of the store's two cash registers. The assailant holding a pistol, identified later as Jemison, held a gun to the clerk's head while the other held a black leather tote bag into which he ordered the clerk to empty the contents of one of the registers.
When the clerk told the men he didn't have a password to open the second register, the armed man allegedly struck him in the back of his head with the gun. The clerk got down on the floor as the unarmed suspect told the gun-wielding one to shoot the clerk, "at which time the armed suspect attempted to chamber a round."
The clerk reported that "once the suspect had chambered a round, he decided he would attempt to disarm the suspect in order to survive."
The clerk jumped up and punched the man, allegedly Jemison, with the pistol in the face, grabbed the gun and wrestled it away from his attacker. The unarmed man, allegedly Traylor, had already fled the store and the recently disarmed one, allegedly Jemison, followed.
The pistol whipping the clerk received from the armed robber may have saved his life. When Texarkana, Ark., Det. Shane Kirkland examined the gun at the Circle K, he noticed that the base plate from the pistol's magazine was missing. The missing plate, found in the cash register area, caused the gun to malfunction because of a lack of spring pressure to push live rounds into the chamber.
The magazine was loaded with several .380-caliber rounds of full metal jacketed bullets.
"I believe that the armed suspect had intended on loading the weapon and shooting (the clerk) but was unable to make the weapon functional," the affidavit states.
The gun provided investigators with a valuable clue. The pistol's serial number led detectives to First Cash Pawn in Palestine, Texas. The man who bought the gun told detectives he had sold the gun in mid-December to Jemison through a go-between via Facebook for $115. The go-between told investigators he had facilitated the gun sale to Jemison and claimed that Jemison had asked him if he wanted to "hit a lick," a slang phrase for committing a crime, during the first week of January but that the go-between had declined.
Texarkana, Ark., detectives recognized the suspects on video surveillance footage from the Circle K as the same men who entered the 71 Express convenience store on State Line Avenue just minutes before the Circle K robbery. The 71 Express clerk told detectives she was sitting in a car having a quick visit with a friend when she saw two men wearing bandanas on their faces enter the store and roam around before grabbing the clerk's wallet from the counter and running out.
"The Prosecuting Attorney's Office is thankful for the jury's time and patience with the judicial process. Three-day trials are difficult on all involved. We are grateful for their sacrifice and for the verdict," Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jeffery Sams said. "We pray that the verdict handed down in this case protects the community from the defendant and serves as a staunch warning to others who may aspire to a life of crime."
Traylor is scheduled for trial Nov. 26.