Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 12, 1995 TAG: 9501120051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARTHA SLUD ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: GOOCHLAND LENGTH: Medium
Sue Kennon was an upper-middle class housewife who was committing her fourth armed robbery with a broken pistol when a Suffolk pharmacist pulled out his own gun and shot her.
The pharmacist - who is now the city's mayor - grazed her in the shoulder. She begged him to finish her off. He wouldn't.
On that day eight years ago, she said, Kennon was after drugs she could use to kill herself. Instead, because of what some legislators say is an ambiguous state law, she was sent to prison for 48 years - longer than the average murder sentence - for a crime in which no one else was injured.
The state classified Kennon, a 44-year-old mother of three, as a ``three-time loser'' for using a broken or toy gun to steal $180 in four holdups during an eight-day spree in 1987. That precludes her from ever being paroled and means her children - now 8, 10 and 15 - will be 24, 26 and 31 on her earliest release date in 2011.
``I think I've paid to my victims for scaring them to death. I can never pay for what I've done to my children,'' Kennon said in an interview last week at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women about 30 miles west of Richmond.
There are Republicans and Democrats who agree that the 1982 three-time-loser law was misapplied in Kennon's case.
``That statute envisioned three separate criminal acts separated by jail time,'' said former U.S. Sen. Paul Trible, a Republican Hampton Roads attorney and former prosecutor who's done pro bono work for Kennon. ``I don't think anyone at the time realized that she would fall under this classification.''
Del. Harry Parrish, R-Manassas, a sponsor of the 1982 law, said Kennon's crimes do not appear to be those the bill targeted.
``The purpose was to get the violent criminal off the street and keep them off,'' he said. ``Apparently, she got caught in the crack.''
Del. Marian Van Landingham, D-Alexandria, said the law was unclear. ``The vast majority probably deserve to be there [prison] but there are probably a handful like Sue who probably don't deserve to be there.''
Kennon says she's kicked her drug habit. She took correspondence courses from Northern Virginia Community College and Ohio University and became the first female Virginia inmate on record to earn a bachelor's degree behind bars. She received her degree in psychology in 1993 and now is taking graduate courses through Virginia Commonwealth University.
``Sue is one of those special people,'' said Randy Shipe, principal of the prison's school program. ``It sure is a waste of my taxpayer money to have her locked up here.''
The state spends about $17,200 a year to incarcerate her, said Jim Jones, a corrections department spokesman.
Until she took up robbery in 1987, Kennon lived in an affluent Chesapeake neighborhood. She became a drug addict after her husband died in an accident in 1979 when she was 61/2 months pregnant with her first child. She had two other children by a former high school classmate.
But her need for drugs grew. She was caught impersonating a nurse calling in prescriptions for potent painkillers and was forced to seek rehabilitation. It didn't work.
She said the robbery spree began in hopes of obtaining money and drugs so she could pay for a motel room and commit suicide.
Suffolk Mayor Chris Jones, the pharmacist who shot her, still can't forget how Kennon stuck a gun in his side and demanded drugs. At the time she was sentenced, he thought the punishment just. He declined to comment on the case.
A bill Van Landingham pushed through the General Assembly in 1993 authorized the board to set up guidelines for revoking an inmate's three-time-loser status and granting parole.
The board approved the guidelines in Gov. Douglas Wilder's final days, but when Allen's appointments took over in April, the process was delayed. Parole Board chairman John Metzger said last week the board will implement the guidelines and may start reviewing cases this month.
Kennon hasn't given up her appeals, either. Her new lawyer, Gerald Zerkin, is trying to have her convictions reversed on grounds she was unaware of the three-time-loser law and its consequences when she confessed in 1987.
by CNB