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The Elayn Hunt Correctional Center is seen Thursday, August 15, 2024, in St. Gabriel, La. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Eighteen years ago, Jauve Collins and two accomplices ambushed a man helping his daughter carry groceries into their Scotlandville home in north Baton Rouge.
Collins shot and killed Henry Bellaire, a retired and beloved Southern University administrator, when his demands for cash weren’t immediately met. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the brutal killing. Collins, now 34, has spent the past 17 years in jails and state prisons.
But his attorneys say he should eventually be declared eligible for parole because he was 16 at the time of the shooting. In their efforts to get Collins a chance at parole, legal advocates cite a landmark U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that struck down automatic life terms for juvenile killers. Supreme Court justices said such sentences should be reserved for “the rare juvenile offender whose crimes represent irreparable corruption.” The high court determined all but the “worst of the worst” child offenders should be entitled to hearings to show they are capable of reform.
When Collins was convicted at the end of a four-day trial in February 2009, District Judge Lou Daniel imposed the then-mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole, probation or a suspended sentence. Although second-degree murder convictions come with a mandatory life sentence for adults in Louisiana, state law allows juvenile killers not deemed beyond rehabilitation a chance at a parole hearing after they have served 25 years. Attorneys for the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights want to ensure Collins has his opportunity at an early release after he has served 25 years.
“Most kids, just like all of us, grow and change and mature as they age,” Hannah Van De Car said during a hearing Friday inside the 19th Judicial District Courthouse. “Unsurprisingly, Jauve Collins is not the same 16-year-old kid that committed this crime 18 years ago. He has grown into a steady, educated, responsible man who’s incredibly deserving of a second chance.
” An armed robbery turns fatal The shooting happened the night of Feb. 26, 2007, in the 200 block of Rivercrest Avenue, in the heart of Scotlandville’s Crestworth subdivision. Henry Bellaire and his daughter, Gaylyn, were outside the family residence as she returned home from work.
Bellaire was carrying groceries inside when three men approached him in the driveway. “Give me your money,” a shadowy figure in a hooded sweatshirt demanded as the two other men stood watch nearby. When Bellaire said he didn’t have any money, the gunman shot him in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun.
Bellaire died two days later at Earl K. Long Medical Center. He was 69.
The shooting disquieted the tranquility of a middle-class community just north of Southern University’s campus. Bellaire was a retired university administrator who lived across the street from then East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden. Gaylyn Bellaire, who witnessed the shooting, identified Collins as her father’s killer.
Dunn and Davis both testified that Collins was the shooter. They later pleaded guilty to lesser charges of accessory after the fact to murder and got five-year sentences. Court records show that when Judge Daniel imposed the life term without the possibility of parole, he ruled that Collins was “incapable of ever being rehabilitated.
” Advocate File Photo by ARTHUR D. LAUCK Henry Bellaire, 69, was shot to death in the driveway of his Scotlandville home in February 2007. Should a teen killer receive a second chance? Collins’ bid for a reduced sentence has shuffled through several attorneys, multiple judges and spanned at least 10 years.
In February 2013, the 19th JDC denied Collins’ motion to vacate his life sentence as unconstitutional, determining that the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling was not retroactive. The First Circuit Court of Appeal reversed that decision three months later, and in a Louisiana case that reached the U.S.
Supreme Court in 2016, justices officially mandated that the new rule should be applied retroactively for cases prior to 2012 involving juvenile offenders. Friday’s hearing took place in the Baton Rouge courtroom of 19th JDC Judge Gail Horne Ray. Collins’ legal team of advocates from the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights is trying to convince Ray to revamp his sentence to make Collins parole eligible.
Even if she does, Collins would still need to serve at least another eight years behind bars before the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee of Parole could consider and possibly grant him parole. Hannah Van De Car, a deputy director for the organization, tried to paint for the judge a backdrop of Collins' upbringing and his history leading up to the killing. His father, Joshua Bell, died in a fiery crash when the pickup truck he was riding in veered off Interstate 10 near Grosse Pointe in July 1990 — three days before Collins was born.
As a child, he had developmental issues and didn't start talking until he was 3. The delayed development caused a severe speech impediment for which Collins was bullied as a young child. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade and turned to crime.
According to testimony, he began selling marijuana and burglarizing homes to survive. At the time of the 2007 shooting, Collins was on probation from a prior burglary. But Van De Car presented testimony on the growth and progress Collins has made over the past 17 years.
He taught himself how to read and write in prison, earned his GED, learned trades, received state licenses in horticulture, and is currently pursuing certification in HVAN installation with plans to enroll in construction program afterward. “Unless the state can prove that Jauve is irreparably corrupt, permanently incorrigible and incapable of rehabilitation, then this court has to sentence him to life with parole," she argued. “Jauve’s appetite for education is insatiable.
It’s what he’s dedicated his life to over the last two decades. And someone who does that — someone who seeks out positivity, personal development and growth — is not the worst offender. That’s not beyond rehabilitation.
” State prosecutors sought to have Judge Ray removed from Collins’ case, citing her status as founding member of an advocacy group called Citizens for Second Chances that seeks to help inmates reintegrate into society after they are released from prison. The First Circuit denied the state’s writ in September. Ali Zito Meronek, a felony prosecutor for the 18th JDC District Attorney's office, noted that Collins was expelled from school several times in his youth and has had disciplinary infractions while in prison.
She asked if Collins has expressed any remorse over the years for killing Bellaire. Meronek also worried that he would reoffend if he is released on parole and could revert to a life of crime if he struggles to find a legal means to make money once he is out. “What makes you think he has grown and has the capacity to obey the rules?" she asked one of the witnesses called to the stand Friday to testify on Collins' behalf.
“Does he understand that out in the real world, he can’t commit crimes to survive?” Judge Ray listened to testimony for Collins on Friday and will hear testimony from the state's witnesses at a later date before she makes her decision. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Jauve Collins (Photo provided).
