VICTIMS’ FAMILY OPPOSES CLEMENCY

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

Although it’s been almost 30 years ago, Stephanie Jackson Hobbs of Pine Bluff can recall every moment of an incident on the parking lot of a retail store on East Harding Avenue where she and three others were shot.

She and one other survived that day in December 1978, but two more, her grandmother and aunt didn’t, and now the man convicted of their murders has been recommended for executive clemency by the state Parole Board.

James W. Robinson, now 65, was convicted of two counts of capital murder by a Jefferson County Circuit Court jury in 1981, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Earlier this month, the board voted 4-2 to recommend to Gov. Mike Beebe that Robinson’s sentence be reduced to 30 years in prison, meaning he could be released by 2011. Neither Hobbs or members of her family were notified of the hearing, she said during a recent interview.

“Since we didn’t get that opportunity with the board, we want everybody that remembers in Pine Bluff to write a letter to the governor, call the governor, whatever they can do to protest this because, I mean, 30 years for two lives is not enough,” she said.

An Arkansas News Bureau report said a majority of the board was impressed with Robinson’s friends and relatives, who testified on his behalf, as well as Robinson completing an anger management course, a Bible course, speaking dynamics class and the Department of Correction’s Principles and Applications of Life Skills Program.

“I don’t fear him but it’s always in the back of my mind, if this man gets out he could possibly kill us,” Hobbs said. “He’s never apologized, he’s never contacted me and said ‘I’m sorry for hurting you.’ I don’t think he’s contacted Amy McKinney (Jackson’s sister, now 80) or my mom.

“For me, you don’t have any remorse for what you’ve done, and I read he had gone through these anger management classes but I think part of that should have been to find the family and apologize,” she said.

On Dec. 2, 1978, Hobbs was a 6-year-old Girl Scout who had gone to the former Fred’s on East Harding, (now Bad Bob’s nightclub) with her grandmother, Dora Jackson; an aunt, Linda Williams, and Jackson’s sister, McKinney.

“We parked off to the side and were walking down the middle of the parking lot and he pulled up and got out and started calling for my aunt (Williams) to come,” Hobbs said. “She was going to ignore him, but my grandmother told her to just go and see what he wanted. My aunt turned around and went to see what he wanted and we kind of started to go in the store and heard the gunshots.” Testimony at the trial revealed that Williams was Robinson’s girlfriend, although Robinson was married.

“I don’t remember when he shot me or my other aunt or my grandmother, but I remember us running along the side of the fence and he was right there behind us,” Hobbs recalled. “My grandmother pushed me inside the store and she fell dead right there in front of the store.”

Hobbs was shot in the stomach and spent seven days in a hospital, being released the same day as funerals for her grandmother and aunt were conducted.

Following the trial in 1981, she thought she would never see Robinson again, but that wasn’t the case.

“There was an incident about 10 years ago,” she said. “I was working at a blood bank at Cummins (prison) and I had seen him a couple of days passing in the hall but I didn’t have any idea it was him. One day he said, ‘Hi Stephanie’, and I just lost it. My boss made some calls and I never saw him again.”

Four years ago, the parole board turned down a recommendation for clemency for Robinson, based in part on a letter Hobbs had sent them.

“When I wrote that letter to the board, my daughter was 6 years old and it really hurt me to look at her small body and think of somebody who would shoot a child,” she said.

“For years, when I was in high school, I remember on Mother’s Day waking up to gospel music and hearing my mother crying about her mother,” Hobbs said. “That went on until she was married.”

A registered nurse and the clinic manager at Jefferson Comprehensive Care System, Hobbs went on to marry and have children.

“I have two children by the grace of God because that was one of the problems being shot created for me,” she said.

Asked if she had a message she wanted to send Robinson, Hobbs didn’t hesitate.

“I want him to know I love God and I have forgiven him, but the biggest thing he can do for me is to stay where he is because for this to be happening to us is like an injustice and for justice to be served, I want him to stay there until his life is over,” she said.

As for a message to the governor, Hobbs repeated her plea that the clemency be denied.

“Show our family some compassion because I feel like we have been looked over so much in this process and to please let him serve the remainder of his sentence,” she said.

She also had some words for the parole board.

“I would like for the board of parole to do a better job contacting people,” Hobbs said. “Even if it’s 50 years ago, it’s easy to find people. You can Goggle a name on the Internet and all the information comes up, and for them to say they tried, that’s not good enough for me. Try harder to contact victims because victims have rights, too.”