ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 8, 1996 TAG: 9609090056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
THOMAS HERMAN JONES, saying prosecutors denied him his right to a speedy trial for murder, has moved to have charges dismissed.
For the past four years, Thomas Herman Jones has been asking Roanoke prosecutors to try him for murder.
But now that he's out of federal prison and back in town, Jones claims that it's too late to prosecute him on charges that he fatally shot a man during an argument at a Northwest Roanoke apartment complex in 1991.
In a motion to dismiss the charges, Jones said prosecutors violated his right to a speedy trial by indicting him for murder in 1992, then doing nothing as he spent the next four years in prison on unrelated drug charges - without as much as an attorney to help him prepare a defense.
So Jones, 24, represented himself, writing in a motion that his "constitutional right to a speedy trial has been denied, and his ability to properly defend himself ... has been adversely compromised and destroyed" by the four-year delay.
Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell said his office has been trying to get Jones back in Roanoke for trial since shortly after he was charged. And while Jones has recently submitted forms - which he said he filed in 1992 - requesting to be transferred from federal prison to Roanoke for trial, Caldwell said the paperwork never reached his office.
The procedural dispute will have to be resolved by a Circuit Court judge when a hearing is held on Jones' motion to dismiss the charges.
"We may lose on this point - anything's possible - but I'm satisfied that we took the proper steps to carry out the correct procedure," Caldwell said.
The case dates to the night of Nov. 20, 1991, when 40-year-old Clifford Long was shot in the chest as he argued with a man in an outdoor hallway of Ferncliff Apartments. A suspect was seen running from the area, but police were not able to make an arrest at the time.
The following year, prosecutors sought charges against Jones in connection with the killing. A grand jury in Roanoke Circuit Court indicted him in February 1992 on charges of murder, use of a firearm and possession of a firearm as a convicted felon.
By then, Jones was in a federal prison in Pennsylvania, serving a 70-month sentence on unrelated cocaine and firearm convictions.
In September 1992, Jones asked to be transferred to Roanoke for his murder trial, according to documents he has filed in court. Under the provisions of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act, prosecutors have 180 days to try an inmate once such a request is made.
Jones said he wanted a quick trial "to prove my innocence." He said he has alibi witnesses - or at least, he had them four years ago - to show that he did not shoot Long. "I didn't even know the man," he said Friday.
But now that four years have passed, Jones said, he's worried that he may no longer be able to find his witnesses.
When prosecutors did not respond to his request for a trial in 1992, he said, he thought perhaps they no longer were interested in trying him. "I was thinking that maybe they found somebody who was the real killer," he said.
"They failed to bring me to trial then, but now they want to just push it through."
Jones' request for a speedy trial is filed in Circuit Court, along with correspondence from federal prison officials offering temporary custody of him to Roanoke authorities "in order that speedy and efficient prosecution may be had of the indictment."
In his motion to dismiss the murder charge, Jones claims that Chief Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Betty Jo Anthony never responded to his request for a trial - an assertion that appears to be documented in letters from prison officials.
In December 1993, an administrator of a Kentucky prison where Jones then was incarcerated wrote to Anthony, informing her that Jones had submitted the proper forms and that the 180-day deadline had expired.
"Please advise this office of your intentions in this matter," inmate systems manager M.F. Willis wrote in a letter filed by Jones in Circuit Court. "This will also serve as a notice to the inmate that he may petition the appropriate court for dismissal of the outstanding charges."
But the charge cannot be dismissed if prosecutors show they have made a good-faith effort to have the defendant transferred from prison for trial. Such an effort was made, Anthony said last week.
"We have a whole file full of things that we tried to do to get him back here," she said.
If Jones submitted his request for speedy trial in 1992 as he said he did, Caldwell said, the form should have been filed in Circuit Court at the time. But it didn't show up in the file until Jones made his motion to dismiss the charge.
"Forms are printed by the dozen, but what I'm waiting to see is evidence that he gave notice" and that the notice was properly received, Caldwell said.
While incarcerated at the federal prison in Petersburg, Jones received legal assistance from Keith Neely, a former Christiansburg lawyer who is serving 10 years for money laundering and drug charges.
Jones completed his sentence Aug. 8 and returned to Roanoke. He is currently free on $15,000 bond.
Last week, he appeared in Circuit Court for a brief hearing, and a public defender was appointed for him. The following day, Public Defender Ray Leven said he could not comment because he had not had time to research the case.
A hearing on Jones' motion to dismiss the charge has not been scheduled.
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