A teenager charged with murder in the death of a guard at the juvenile detention center in 2010 could be sentenced to life in prison after the state Supreme Court rejected his claim that he should not be subject to extended juvenile jurisdiction (EJJ).
Nicholas Dismuke, now 17, was one of three teenagers charged as adults with capital murder and other crimes stemming from the Jan. 30, 2010, death of Leonard “Sandy” Wall, 58.
Wall died after he was allegedly beaten during an escape by Dismuke, Christopher Beverage and Brandon Henderson.
Dismuke’s attorneys filed a motion asking that his case be transferred out of adult court to juvenile court and on August 2010, Circuit Judge Rob Wyatt Jr. denied that request.
In 2011, the state Supreme Court ordered that Dismuke’s case be transferred to juvenile court because of what the court said was the failure of prosecutors to timely provide the defense with the names of witnesses who were to testify at that hearing.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
After the case was transferred to juvenile court, prosecutors asked Juvenile Judge Earnest Brown Jr. to conduct an EJJ hearing, which Brown agreed to do, and later in August 2010, granted EJJ jurisdiction.
That grant of EJJ jurisdiction formed the basis of Dismuke’s latest appeal to the high court, based on what he said was that when Wyatt refused to transfer the case to juvenile court, he rejected the EJJ designation.
That contention was based on testimony at the hearing from Scott Tanner, the coordinator of the Juvenile Ombudsman Division, who testified about rehabilitation options that would be available if Dismuke’s case was sent to juvenile court. Tanner testified that among those options was the possibility of EJJ, and under EJJ, the length of the detention would be longer and there would be greater oversight by the court.
Additionally, Tanner testified that under EJJ, Dismuke could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of capital or first-degree murder.
Dismuke also contended that if the juvenile court attaches the EJJ designation to his case, then it would be transferred back to circuit court, violating the orders of the supreme court.
Associate Supreme Court Justice Robert Brown said in the ruling Dismuke’s contention was incorrect because state law does not require the juvenile court to transfer the case back to circuit court, and Brown’s order designating EJJ status for Dismuke does not mention a transfer to circuit court.
Brown also said in the ruling that Dismuke’s case was transferred to juvenile court only after Wyatt was ordered to do so by the Supreme Court, and nothing in the earlier ruling suggested that EJJ designation was an issue.
A contention that an EJJ hearing was held at the same time as the hearing requesting that the case be transferred to juvenile court was also rejected by the supreme court, which noted that while state law permits a circuit court to hold two hearings simultaneously, it does not require that the court do so.
“There is nothing in the statute that requires the criminal courts to make a decision on the EJJ issue before the case is transferred to juvenile court,” Brown said in the ruling. “Also, to repeat, the transfer to juvenile court was done because of directives from this court in N.D.1 and not because the criminal court had decided to do so.”
The supreme court also turned down a claim by Dismuke’s attorneys that EJJ designation constituted double jeopardy because he was subject to receiving a life sentence in criminal court if he had been tried as an adult.
Brown said in the ruling that because Dismuke has not been acquitted or convicted of any of the offenses he is charged with, the double jeopardy claim is not valid.
“As an initial matter, his argument is premature because he has yet to be sentenced or even adjudicated a delinquent,” Brown said in the ruling. “Instead, the EJJ designation simply means at this stage that if the juvenile court finds the allegations in the petition are true and adjudicates him to be a delinquent, he may be sentenced to a more strenuous punishment than what is available in juvenile court without such adjudication.”
Dismuke, Beverage and Henderson were all charged with capital murder, aggravated robbery, first-degree escape, second-degree battery, felony theft of property and misdemeanor theft of property stemming from the escape and their actions afterward, including the robbery of two individuals on the parking lot of a convenience store near the juvenile detention center and the theft of the couple’s vehicle, as well as the beating of a second guard at the juvenile center during the escape.
Prosecutors said Beverage had jimmied the lock on his cell door by putting a playing card in the locking mechanism, and when Wall entered Dismuke’s cell to check on him, Beverage rushed out of his cell and both physically attacked and beat Wall. They then got Wall’s keys and opened another cell where Henderson was being held.
Beverage and Dismuke were arrested the day after the escape at Fort Smith while Henderson was taken into custody a day later when he tried to cross the Arkansas-Oklahoma line in a rented truck.
Dismuke had been sent to the juvenile detention center at Pine Bluff from the White County Regional Detention Facility at Batesville after he was adjudicated as delinquent for the commission of aggravated robbery and possession of a weapon. He had been at the Pine Bluff facility for 16 days at the time of the escape.
In May, the high court ruled that the charges against Beverage, now 17, would remain in adult court, upholding Wyatt’s decision not to transfer the case to juvenile court as an attorney for Beverage had requested.
In addition to the charges stemming from the death of Wall, Beverage has subsequently been charged with four counts of second-degree battery, all related to allegations that he physically attacked guards at the adult detention center where he is being held.
If convicted of capital murder, Beverage would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the only punishment available under current Arkansas State law.
The third defendant in the case, Henderson, who was 18 at the time of the escape, pleaded innocent to lesser charges in the case and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.