SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS
No. CR07-219
SHELDRICK JEROME HERROD,
APPELLANT,
VS.
STATE OF ARKANSAS,
APPELLEE,
Opinion Delivered 9-20-07
APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, NO.
CR06-1330, HON. JOHN LANGSTON,
JUDGE,
AFFIRMED.
ROBERT L. BROWN, Associate Justice
Appellant Sheldrick Jerome Herrod was convicted of capital murder, attempted capital
murder, two counts of aggravated robbery, and one count of theft of property. He was
sentenced to life without parole for capital murder, life imprisonment for attempted capital
murder, forty years for each count of aggravated robbery, and one year in the county jail plus
a $1000 fine for misdemeanor theft of property. All sentences except the sentence for theft
of property are to run consecutively. Herrod’s sole point on appeal is that the circuit court
erred in refusing to disqualify Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson as the prosecutor at his jury
trial. We conclude there was no abuse of discretion by the circuit court, and we affirm.
The facts, according to the witnesses at trial, are these. In the early hours of the
morning on March 2, 2006, Herrod was with Tinika Wakwe at her apartment in southwest
Little Rock. Also at the apartment were Tony Mayo, Cortez Bone, and Kathy Owens.
At times in the record, Suzanne Chapman is erroneously referred to as “Suzanne
1
Chandler.”
-2-
CR07-219
Wakwe, Mayo, Bone, and Owens were drinking alcohol and taking cocaine. Later, the
group left Wakwe’s apartment and went to Legends bar on Rodney Parham in a Nissan X-
Terra. In the parking lot of the bar, Herrod began talking to the victims, Kari Evans and
James Cody Dobbins. According to Evans, Dobbins wanted to buy some cocaine, and
Herrod said that he would sell it to him. Herrod and his acquaintances left Legends and drove
a few blocks away to the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. There, they met Dobbins and
Evans, who arrived in Evans’s black BMW. Herrod took a gun from the X-Terra, got into
the back seat of the BMW, and rode with the couple to southwest Little Rock.