A 54-year-old North Little Rock man accused of killing a teenager in what prosecutors called an "old-school murder" was acquitted Thursday after a three-day trial.
A Pulaski County jury deliberated about 4½ hours to clear Keith Charles "Smiley" Jones of first-degree murder and first-degree battery over the July 2014 shooting of 19-year-old Charles Lamont Boyd Jr. and wounding of Saudeion Hussey, now 21, at Hussey's home at the corner of Frank and West 13th streets.
A guilty verdict would have meant an automatic life sentence for Jones because of a criminal history that includes seven aggravated-robbery convictions stemming from a 1991 Little Rock robbery rampage and shootout. He received a 24-year prison sentence for the robberies.
Thursday's acquittal also does not mean that he will be released from custody immediately. Jones is close to finishing a three-year federal prison sentence for firearm possession by a felon stemming from an unrelated incident about three weeks after the North Little Rock shooting.
Defense attorney Bill James told jurors that police had the wrong man and attacked the prosecution for relying so heavily on the two eyewitnesses to the slaying, Hussey and his then-girlfriend, Asada Jackson.
The pair were too addled from smoking marijuana to be reliable witnesses, James said, pointing out that Hussey had admitted that he had not been completely honest with police.
"Is their [witness] testimony credible enough to convict a man for something so serious?" James said in his closing arguments. "Do we really know what happened? Make a decision today that you never have to question again because it's a big decision in Keith Jones' life."
James, assisted by his son, Will James, and co-counsel Bobby Digby, also criticized the police probe led by detective Michael Gibbons, describing the officer as a "super cop" who inadvertently influenced the couple to light upon Jones as the man they saw shoot Boyd.
Eager for a conviction, Jackson and Hussey just went along with whatever police said, once they knew the investigation had settled on someone named Smiley as being the killer, the attorney said. James also warned jurors against reaching a verdict based on fear.
Jones also had an alibi. His uncle, David Stewart, testifying on the second day, said his nephew was with him when Boyd was killed about 9 miles away from the shooting. Stewart told jurors that they had gone to the funeral of a friend, then attended a "luau" block party on Ludwig Street that turned into a wake for the deceased.
Boyd was killed by a man who walked up and shot him almost point-blank, a gunman who didn't bother to hide his face and walked away to get into a waiting vehicle. That's an "old school" killing done by someone who wanted Boyd's death to be a "sure thing," senior deputy prosecutor Leigh Patterson told jurors. That kind of murderer comes from the generation before drive-by shootings, which are a lot less reliable, she said.
"[Boyd's life] was taken with planning and intent. It was done with purpose ... without batting an eye, he took a father from his son," she said.
Prosecutors said Boyd, known as "Chopper," was killed because he had annoyed Jones' family. Shortly before he was killed, Boyd, armed with two guns, had been yelling at the neighbors -- where Jones' sister lived -- apparently angry that someone there had stolen a gun from him. He warned the residents that if he didn't get the weapon back, there would be trouble.
Jones' sister Lori Parker, 57, was identified by one witness as the driver who took the killer away. She is charged with hindering apprehension in the case.
Jones made seven cellphone calls in the four minutes before Boyd was shot, with all of those calls routing through an AT&T cell tower "just around the corner" from where Boyd was killed. That's the closest tower to the site out of the roughly 250 the company operates in Pulaski County.
Metro on 12/08/2017