ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 1996 TAG: 9603270051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
For a while, it looked as if Phillip Sirrine was going to get a break.
After Sirrine - a courteous carjacker who had never been in trouble before he went on a 38-hour crime spree - was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison, a Roanoke judge agreed to reconsider part of the sentence.
The request to reduce Sirrine's time even had the blessing of his victim, a pizza delivery driver who was impressed by the way he apologized for robbing her and then dropped her off at a telephone booth, making sure she had enough change to call for help.
But shortly after Circuit Judge Richard Pattisall agreed to reconsider the sentence, Sirrine was transferred from the Roanoke City Jail to the state Department of Corrections. Prosecutors argued that Pattisall lost jurisdiction over the case when Sirrine left the jail and became a ward of the state.
Defense attorney Gary Lumsden said the timing of Sirrine's transfer - just two weeks after Pattisall agreed to hear a motion to reduce the sentence - was "awfully suspicious."
But Lumsden stopped short of accusing anyone of arranging a move that, in effect, took the matter out of the sentencing judge's hands.
"My feeling is, Joel Branscom is too nice of a guy and has too much integrity to where he would have initiated something like this," Lumsden said. Branscom prosecuted Sirrine in Roanoke as an assistant commonwealth's attorney before he was elected Botetourt County commonwealth's attorney in November.
"But that's not to say that someone else might not have done it," Lumsden added.
Last week, the Virginia Supreme Court issued an order stating that Pattisall "lost jurisdiction to modify the sentence of Phillip Wayne Sirrine after his transfer to the Department of Corrections."
And, Lumsden said, "the wheels of justice came to a screeching halt."
Ann Gardner, an assistant commonwealth's attorney for Roanoke who is handling the case, said the timing of Sirrine's transfer was "sheer coincidence."
Gardner - who is Branscom's wife - pointed out that Sirrine had been in the jail since April, awaiting transfer to a state prison to begin serving his time. "So it wasn't like they just came in there and snatched him away," she said.
It is not unusual for inmates to spend six months or more in the city jail awaiting transfer to the state's crowded prison system.
Prosecutors conceded that at the time Pattisall agreed to reconsider the sentence, Sept. 13, he had jurisdiction because Sirrine was still in the city jail. But after the judge indicated that he still would take up the issue after Sirrine was transferred Sept. 26, Gardner took the rare step of seeking a writ of prohibition from the state Supreme Court.
The writ commands Pattisall to "refrain from entering any orders" that would change Sirrine's sentence.
Lumsden had hoped to convince Pattisall that Sirrine was punished too harshly for a crime that earned him the nickname of the "courteous carjacker."
Earlier testimony has shown that Sirrine, 22, ordered a pizza in 1994 and robbed the delivery person at gunpoint, explaining that he was on his way to recruit mercenaries to fight in Mexico.
Although Sirrine was not legally insane at the time, a psychiatrist testified that he was suffering from the delusion that he was on some sort of military mission.
After dropping the woman off with an apology, Sirrine drove her car to Staunton and Albemarle County, where he has been convicted in separate robberies. No one was injured in any of the hold-ups. Because Sirrine was sentenced in several jurisdictions, Lumsden said, he wound up with a total sentence of 20 years.
"The general consensus was that the time was too much," Lumsden said. In fact, even the victim said in an affidavit that she would not object to a reduction in Sirrine's sentence.
Gardner thinks otherwise. "He got an extremely lenient sentence, all things considered," she said. Carjacking and robbery both carry maximum sentences of life in prison.
Because part of Sirrine's sentence was based on mandatory terms for firearm offenses, the most that Pattisall could have done was knock off five years.
Sirrine will be eligible for parole, because the offenses happened before Jan. 1, 1995.
While prosecutors no doubt would have argued against any sentence reduction, Gardner said the law was clear that Pattisall was not allowed to even consider the issue.
"We had an obligation to see that the right thing was done and the law was followed," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 86 linesby CNB