ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020020
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PEARISBURG
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
And then there were none.
By 5 p.m. Wednesday the case that began with seven defendants from a busted Super Bowl party was over. Authorities had charged the men with bashing heads and furniture after crashing the party last January.
The Giles County Circuit Court Clerk's Office had contacted more than 180 people for jury duty in the much-talked-about case with seven defendants, seven defense attorneys and one commonwealth's attorney. It was the first joinder trial in the county - where more than one defendant is tried for differing charges - that anyone could remember.
The trial's relatively unwieldy size began dwindling Monday, however, when one of the defendants struck a deal and pleaded guilty.
By Tuesday, as the clerk's staff designated juror badges and herded in the more than 125 people who were able to show up for jury duty, another defendant struck a deal.
By late Wednesday afternoon, Circuit Judge Dow Owens had accepted plea agreements from the five remaining defendants.
Afterward, Commonwealth's Attorney Garland Spangler gathered his papers as one of the three extra bailiffs hired for the case turned the lights off. Spangler was the last to leave the courtroom after more than 30 witnesses, 16 jurors and about 50 spectators had filed out.
He was admittedly a little tired and disappointed.
"Reliving it would have been difficult for some family members," Spangler said of why he agreed to the plea agreements. "I wouldn't have done it if all the victims had not agreed."
Spangler's staff and the circuit court clerk's staff spent hundreds of hours preparing for the trial, that one defense attorney said could have easily taken a week to conclude if all the evidence had been presented.
Circuit Court Clerk Scarlet Buckland Ratcliffe said she was pleasantly surprised by how well the advance preparations went.
" ... we couldn't have asked for it to go smoother," Ratcliffe said.
Ratcliffe and the deputy clerks prepared questionnaires and mailed them to all the potential jurors in advance. The jury selection went quickly, she said, because the attorneys already knew who could not serve because of conflicts such as family relations to people involved in the trial.
The five remaining attorneys began the jury selection process Tuesday that lasted from 9:30 until a jury was seated at about 4:15 p.m. Ratcliffe said they went through 78 people before picking 12 jurors and four alternates.
The second day of the trial began at 8:30 a.m. with the state presenting its case, calling six witnesses and entering photographs of the victims as evidence. One victim was flown to Roanoke with head injuries so severe some officials said they wondered if he would live. One man was hit in the back of the head with a metal chair.
Spangler, with the judge's approval, asked for a joint jury trial to save money. Ratcliffe said if each defendant was tried in a separate jury trial - and, conceivably each could have requested a separate trial for each felony charge - the expense surely would have been more. As it was, postage and jury pay alone totaled more than $4,500, she said.
One defendant had four felonies, including one breaking and entering and three malicious wounding by mob, reduced to misdemeanors. He originally faced 80 years in prison, but instead will likely serve about seven months in jail, according to defense attorney Joe Painter.
The sentence for each defendant varied slightly and ranged up to felony convictions carrying 20-year prison sentences. In these cases, the defendants were ordered to serve two years in prison with 18 years suspended. The six men and one woman convicted will pay the victims' medical bill and home repair bills.
But Painter held on to his argument that trying seven people together in this manner risks a jury bias of "guilt by association." The use of joinder is not uncommon in federal court, he said, but rarely seen in state court.
"I still think it was a mess," he said, but complimented the work of the clerk's office which he said "came through with unbelievable flying colors."
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