Murder convictions from southwest Georgia upheld in Georgia Supreme Court

ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld the murder conviction and life prison sentence given to a man convicted in Crisp County identified as the statewide leader of the “Rollin’ 20s” street gang, a division of the “Bloods,” which is a criminal gang founded in Los Angeles.

The ruling was one of several southwest Georgia murder convictions upheld by the court on Tuesday.

Rocquel Quinton Chavers was convicted of malice murder, violation of the Georgia Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act and gun possession charges for the 2014 shooting death of Jasperin Armstrong. In his appeal to the state’s highest court, Chavers argued that the evidence was insufficient to convict him of violating the Street Gang Act, that the trial court erred by allowing certain testimony and that his trial attorney rendered “ineffective assistance of counsel” in violation of his constitutional rights.

In the court’s unanimous opinion, Justice Sarah H. Warren wrote, “We disagree and affirm,” the convictions.

The evidence chronicled in the opinion states that on the morning of Sept. 12, 2014, Armstrong’s body was discovered on the side of a road. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner determined Armstrong had been shot several hours earlier. When police later searched Armstrong’s bedroom, they found printed gang rules, and his girlfriend verified that he was a member of the “Rollin’ 20s” gang.

The investigators also recovered messages from the gang’s Facebook group, including a number of his co-defendants. Among them were Rontavious Towns, leader of the gang in Cordele.

Officials said the murder stemmed from a fight that had broken out earlier that summer at a basketball game between members of the Rollin’ 20s and a rival gang. During the game, Armstrong’s cousin, Jacquese Hicks, who was in the other gang, elbowed one of the Rollin’ 20s gang members. Instead of joining the fight with his fellow gang members, Armstrong tried to break it up.

Soon messages appeared on Facebook criticizing Armstrong’s refusal to fight and warning that Chavers would impose consequences. In a later conversation on speaker phone, Chavers told a fellow gang member they had to stick together, that Armstrong “went out bad,” and “somebody’s got to die.” At a meeting of gang members a few days before Armstrong was killed, the girlfriend of one of the members heard them say that Armstrong refused to fight and somebody was “on the plate” and “going to get ate.”

At trial, a gang expert testified that someone who is “on the plate” or “going to get ate” is someone who has been targeted to be beaten or killed, court officials said.

In the two days leading up to Armstrong’s death, Towns and Chavers called each other 45 times. The night of Sept. 11, Chavers and Andreika Harper drove from Bainbridge to Cordele in Harper’s car, where they joined a group of gang members in an apartment complex parking lot. Armstrong, who had told his girlfriend he was due to meet with Chavers, got a ride from his mother, who dropped him off where he joined the group. Chavers told Armstrong everyone had been waiting for him and he was going to take a ride with Chavers and Harper.

After the three left, one of the remaining gang members said Chavers was “talking crazy, he’s talking about killing (Armstrong).” In the car, Chavers asked Armstrong why he had not joined the fight with his fellow gang members and why he had missed gang meetings.

After several minutes, Chavers stopped in the road and asked Armstrong to get out of the car and help him find something. After the two got out, Harper saw Armstrong standing on the side of the road and Chavers appearing to look for something. Then she heard a loud noise and saw a flash. After Chavers got back into the car, he told Harper she could not tell anyone what had happened, that Armstrong had said, “Don’t kill me, man,” and that he had tried to shoot Armstrong a second time but the gun had jammed.

Officials said that, on their way back to Bainbridge, Chavers called Towns and told him the “job had been done.” Chavers threw the gun into the river in Bainbridge, and he and Harper spent the night in a motel.

In November 2014, Chavers, Harper and Towns were indicted by a grand jury for malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault. Chavers, Towns and two others also were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and violation of the Street Gang Act. Chavers alone was indicted for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Chavers was tried separately, and at his trial, he admitted that he was the highest ranking member of the Rollin’ 20s gang in Georgia. Officials said he added that he and Harper had picked up Armstrong, and that he had discussed with Armstrong the problems he was having with other members of the gang. He said on the night of Sept. 11, 2014, he had dropped Armstrong off at the side of the road, and he denied making the threatening statements others said he had made.

Following his August 2015 trial, a jury found Chavers guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 15 years for violation of the Street Gang Act, and another 10 years for the firearm counts.

The high court has rejected all three of Chavers’s grounds for appeal, including his argument that the evidence was insufficient to prove his guilt of conspiracy to commit murder and, therefore, was also insufficient to support his conviction for violation of the Street Gang Act because that violation was predicated on the conspiracy offense.

“The jury was presented with ample evidence that Chavers conspired to murder Armstrong, including: Chavers’s rank in the gang; his statements to fellow gang members about killing violators of gang rules; his communications with gang members who were critical of Armstrong; his own criticism of Armstrong — which was coupled with statements that ‘somebody’s got to die’; Chavers’s trip to Cordele to meet with gang members about Armstrong; and Chavers ultimately driving Armstrong away and shooting him,” the opinion said. “The evidence was more than sufficient for the jury to infer a mutual understanding between Chavers and other gang members to carry out Armstrong’s murder.

“We therefore conclude that the evidence presented against him was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Chavers was guilty of the conspiracy offense that served as a predicate for his conviction for violation of the Street Gang Act.”

At the same time, the court also upheld murder convictions for Desmond Barnes in Terrell County, Steve McDonald in Seminole County and Ashley Strozier in Tift County.