ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 27, 1997 TAG: 9702270062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
A Roanoke jury sentenced Cepeda R. Wiley to eight years in prison Wednesday for a killing that he said was in self-defense.
After convicting Wiley of shooting Jesse D. Ferguson four times outside a Northwest Roanoke motel last July 4, the jury set his sentence at five years for voluntary manslaughter and three years for use of a firearm. The sentences will run consecutively.
During the punishment phase of Wiley's trial, several family members described the 22-year-old - who had no criminal record before his manslaughter conviction Tuesday night - as more of a peacekeeper than a troublemaker.
Wiley, 22, said he was just responding to a call for help from his brother the day he killed Ferguson.
In a statement to police, Wiley said his older brother, Sherrond Wiley, was with his girlfriend at the Embassy Motor Lodge on Melrose Avenue. Cepeda Wiley said he was awakened by a call from his brother, who said Ferguson was at the motel causing trouble. Ferguson, 22, had once dated Sherrond Wiley's girlfriend and was angry because she had left him.
When Cepeda Wiley arrived, a fight broke out in the parking lot. Sherrond Wiley's head was smashed into a car windshield, and witness said Cepeda Wiley opened fire when Ferguson threatened to kill him.
Wiley told police that he first fired warning shots. Of the 10 gunshots fired, four of them found Ferguson, who was struck twice in the side, once in the back and once in the neck.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Bowers said that not only did Cepeda Wiley kill a man when he just as easily could have called police for help, but he endangered the lives of countless city residents and travelers within the one-mile range of his handgun.
"He's willing to shoot 10 pieces of steel into a motel parking lot, and into a man," Bowers said in asking the jury to impose the maximum sentence of 13 years.
In testimony Wednesday, Wiley seemed resigned to doing at least three years in prison - the mandatory sentence for use of a firearm. On the manslaughter charge, the jury could have picked a punishment from one day in jail to 10 years in prison.
"I'm willing to do the time, and after that, I'll go on with my life," Wiley testified.
Judge Robert P. Doherty ordered Wiley, who had been free on bond, sent to jail to await a formal sentencing hearing in April. If the judge imposes the jury's recommended sentence, Wiley will have to serve at least 85 percent of it, or six years and nine months.
Wiley's attorneys, who had built a defense on portraying Ferguson as a dangerous man who started the fight and wouldn't back down, argued that three years on the firearm charge was punishment enough for someone who had never been in trouble with the law before - and who likely never will be again.
Defense attorney Alton Prillaman said that Wiley, a temporary worker in Roanoke's sanitation department, is not the type of person who should be sent to prison for a long time.
"In the space of two or three minutes, Cepeda Wiley's life has changed, and changed drastically," Prillaman said.
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