Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 6, 1995 TAG: 9504060080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Richmond Circuit Judge Thomas N. Nance set May 22 for the start of Christopher C. Goins' trial. Goins is charged with capital murder for the Oct. 14, 1994, shooting deaths of three children and two adults in an apartment at Gilpin Court.
Goins was arrested Nov. 17 in a Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment with his girlfriend, Monique M. Littlejohn. They were jailed for 21/2 months in New York while they battled extradition to Virginia.
Nance also said Wednesday that Littlejohn, who has been charged with being an accessory before the fact, is to be tried June 12.
Nance devoted most of the hearing to a request by defense lawyers to have Goins and Littlejohn tried somewhere other than Richmond. The lawyers say their clients can't get a fair trial in the city because of prejudicial media coverage.
The judge said he would rule soon on the request. But just as he did at a March 21 hearing, Nance made it clear he doesn't necessarily agree that finding an impartial jury is impossible in Richmond.
``I think you can seat a jury,'' Nance said. ``There's no question about that.''
Shot to death in the unit were Daphne Jones, 29, and three of her children: Nicole, 9; David, 4; and Robert, 3. Also killed was James N. Randolph Jr., 35, described by the victims' neighbors as Daphne Jones' boyfriend and father of her two oldest children.
All five were shot at close range in what Mayor Leonidas Young called ``the worst single crime in our city's history.''
Defense lawyers said the comments of Young and other city officials in the days following the slayings were reported by media outlets in a manner that made their clients look guilty and especially dangerous. The lawyers also expressed concern about media reports describing the locations of the children's bodies and about Commonwealth's Attorney David Hicks describing the autopsies.
Between the time of the slayings and the arrests of the two defendants, the Richmond Times-Dispatch published nearly 65 stories on the matter, said Kevin Short, Littlejohn's attorney.
``The press has essentially planted a seed,'' Short said. ``If you take everything as a whole - all the evidence that's been introduced - you've got a sentiment in the community to convict.''
Hicks urged Nance to base his ruling not on the volume of media coverage, but on the question of whether that coverage would make it impossible to seat an objective jury.
``What we have here, your honor, is defense counsel asking you to look into a crystal ball, which clearly you cannot,'' Hicks said.
by CNB