ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 5, 1996 TAG: 9604050095
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
ALREADY THE YOUNGEST person to be convicted as an adult in Roanoke, Davon Anderson, 15, may be going to jail unless he qualifies for a young offenders' program.
Fifteen-year-old Davon Anderson, the youngest person to be convicted as an adult in Roanoke, learned Thursday that he probably will go to prison for what a prosecutor called "predatory, premeditated" attacks that left one man unconscious and a second one comatose.
At a hearing in Roanoke Circuit Court, Judge Richard Pattisall said Anderson's lengthy criminal record made him unsuitable for the juvenile court system.
But Pattisall delayed a final decision on how much time Anderson will serve. He referred the teen-ager to a Department of Corrections program for youthful offenders, where he would serve an indeterminate sentence of up to three years.
Because it will take several months to determine if Anderson qualifies for the program, a final decision will not be made until August. If Anderson is not accepted, he would face up to 15 years in the penitentiary's general population.
Anderson, who was 14 at the time of his crimes, is the first and so far the only Roanoke youth prosecuted under a new law that lowers the minimum age at which a juvenile can be tried as an adult from 15 to 14.
Last year, he and a 17-year-old co-defendant were convicted of malicious wounding for beating two men nearly to death the night of May 2 in Old Southwest.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wanda DeWease said at an earlier hearing that David Chase suffered head injuries and a fractured skull after the two juveniles burst into his Mountain Avenue apartment and beat him with a sawed-off baseball bat. The incident stemmed from an argument that Chase, 38, had earlier with the mother of the 17-year-old, Leo Harper.
Several hours later, 39-year-old Roger Boothe was attacked by the two youths as he walked on Mountain Avenue, DeWease said. Boothe, who was beaten and stomped in the head, was in a coma for several months and is permanently disabled as a result of his injuries.
Describing the attacks as "predatory, premeditated violence," DeWease had asked Pattisall to impose a 15-year prison sentence for Anderson. "He is a dangerous individual and he needs to be removed from the streets," she said.
Anderson, who has a prior criminal record, "is way beyond anything that the juvenile court system can offer him," DeWease said.
But Assistant Public Defender Michelle Derrico pointed to her client's troubled childhood - which included physical, sexual and emotional abuse - in asking that he be spared the further trauma of an adult prison sentence.
"It's not a waste of time to try to help this child," she said.
Anderson, who had been held in the Coyner Springs Juvenile Detention Center for almost a year, was transferred to the Roanoke City Jail after Thursday's hearing.
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