Killer Who Gunned Down A Victim On Greensboro's South Elm Street Skips Trial, Strikes Deal Capped At 20 Years
A Greensboro man accused of gunning down 19-year-old Taivaski Davenport on South Elm Street in 2023 was facing first-degree murder — and a mandatory life sentence. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge instead, and a judge capped his prison term at 20 years.
Case at a glance
- Greensboro man — defendant who pleaded guilty to a 2023 South Elm Street homicide, convicted
Next: The sentencing itself appears to close out the criminal case against Jemison; the coverage reviewed doesn't mention an appeal being filed. His 190-to-240-month term means he cannot be released before serving roughly 15 years and 10 months, and must be released no later than the 20-year mark. No further hearing date is listed in the reporting.
A shooting in the middle of the night on South Elm Street
Greensboro police say the call came in just before 1 a.m. on Nov. 18, 2023. Officers were already working in the area of South Elm Street and East Lewis Street when they got word of a disorder and a shooting in the 500 block of South Elm.
They found one victim with life-threatening injuries and rushed him to a local hospital. He didn't survive. Police identified him as Taivaski Kewann Davenport, 19, and once he died of his wounds, the case became a homicide investigation.
Investigators said preliminary information indicated the shooting wasn't tied to any establishment on that block — this didn't spill out of a bar or a club. Whatever started it happened on the street itself.
Police took a man into custody and charged him with first-degree murder, the most serious homicide charge North Carolina has on the books, one that carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole upon conviction.
Who's involved in the case
The man charged was Andrew Dajuan Jemison. He was 33 years old at the time of the shooting; he's 36 now, three years later, when the case finally resolved.
The victim was Taivaski Kewann Davenport, 19, killed on South Elm Street. The coverage reviewed for this story doesn't include details about who he was beyond his name and age as they appear in the police report and court record.
Superior Court Judge Lisa Johnson-Tonkins presided over the case in Guilford County Superior Court and handed down the sentence. The reporting on this case does not name an attorney for either side, and no statement from the Guilford County District Attorney's Office appears in the coverage.
From a life-sentence charge to a 20-year ceiling
Jemison was charged with first-degree murder — the charge prosecutors use when they believe they can prove a killing was premeditated. A conviction on that charge in North Carolina carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
That's not how this case ended. On Monday, Jemison pleaded guilty in Guilford County Superior Court — not to first-degree murder, but to second-degree murder, a lesser homicide charge that does not require proof the killing was planned in advance.
Judge Johnson-Tonkins sentenced him to 190 to 240 months in state prison. That works out to roughly 15 years and 10 months at the low end, and exactly 20 years at the high end — the ceiling the headline refers to. Under North Carolina's structured sentencing system, minimum-maximum ranges like this one are tied to the offense and the defendant's record; the state must release him once he's served the maximum, and he isn't eligible for release before he's served the minimum.
In plain terms: a man who was facing a guaranteed life sentence will instead spend somewhere between about 16 and 20 years behind bars, and he reached that outcome by pleading guilty rather than standing trial.
What's on the record — and what isn't
The reporting on this plea and sentencing, from WXLV, does not include statements from Jemison, a defense attorney, Davenport's family, or the Guilford County District Attorney's Office explaining why the case resolved with a plea instead of going to trial.
That absence is common in homicide cases that end in a negotiated plea rather than a verdict. Prosecutors sometimes judge that a guaranteed conviction on a lesser charge is worth more than the risk of a trial where proving premeditation beyond a reasonable doubt could be difficult. But nothing in the coverage of this case spells out that reasoning directly, and no on-the-record quotes from either side appear in it.
What happens next
The sentencing itself appears to close out the criminal case against Jemison; the coverage reviewed doesn't mention an appeal being filed. His 190-to-240-month term means he cannot be released before serving roughly 15 years and 10 months, and must be released no later than the 20-year mark. No further hearing date is listed in the reporting.
How this plays in court
From a prosecutor's chair, a plea down from first-degree murder to second-degree murder almost always comes down to one issue: premeditation. First-degree requires proof Jemison thought about the killing beforehand, however briefly. If witnesses couldn't nail down a clear timeline, or the physical evidence didn't establish who fired first and why, a district attorney may prefer a guaranteed conviction and a 20-year ceiling over the risk of an acquittal — or a jury coming back with the lesser charge anyway after a full trial.
The defense's leverage in a case like this is exactly that gap — the distance between what police believed happened on the street and what a prosecutor could actually prove to twelve jurors beyond a reasonable doubt. A plea to second-degree murder lets Jemison's side argue the shooting wasn't planned, even though it still cost a 19-year-old his life.
Within the 190-to-240-month range tied to second-degree murder under North Carolina's structured sentencing grid, a judge weighs the defendant's prior record and the specific circumstances of the killing. The coverage here doesn't detail what aggravating or mitigating factors were argued at sentencing, so it's not possible to say from the record alone why the final number landed where it did within that band.
- WXLV: Killer Who Gunned Down A Victim On Greensboro's South Elm Street Skips Trial, Strikes Deal Capped At 20 Years