
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 10, 1995                   TAG: 9508100086
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUDGE: BOY, 14, CAN BE INDICTED AS ADULT

A Roanoke Circuit Court judge ruled Wednesday that prosecutors could try to indict as an adult a 14-year-old accused of beating two men in Old Southwest.

After a 5 1/2-hour hearing, Judge Diane Strickland overturned Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge John Ferguson's June 30 decision to keep the case in juvenile court.

"She decided that this was not an appropriate person to remain within the juvenile court system," said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wanda DeWease.

The 14-year-old and a 17-year-old were charged May 3 with beating two men in Old Southwest, leaving one in a coma from which he didn't emerge until June.

In ruling to keep both youths in juvenile court, Ferguson also found there was probable cause to support charges of malicious wounding and aggravated malicious wounding against them. Ferguson ruled that their names could not be made public because of their ages.

It may be the first time in Roanoke that prosecutors will be allowed to seek indictments against a 14-year-old since a law was passed dropping the age - to 14 - at which a juvenile can be tried as an adult. Under the old law, the cut-off was age 15, but the General Assembly enacted the new law under pressure to get tougher on juvenile crime.

DeWease said she argued Wednesday, as she did in Ferguson's court, that the 14-year-old robbed Roger Lee Booth, 39, of any meaningful life. The youth, she argued, should be tried as an adult because of the heinous nature of the crime.

According to an earlier police report, Booth, of Dale Avenue Southeast, was found lying on a sidewalk on Mountain Avenue Southwest about 2 a.m. May 3. He was bleeding heavily from the mouth and nose. Witnesses said he had been stomped in the head as two youths attacked him after an argument.

Police then learned that several hours earlier, 45-year-old David Chase had answered a knock on the door of his Mountain Avenue home and was beaten by two youths with what appeared to him to be a piece of metal pipe.

DeWease said an appeal of Ferguson's decision regarding the other youth is scheduled for later this month.

by CNB