THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280608
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Todd Moore - admitted murderer, drug dealer and prison escapee - escaped the death penalty Thursday when U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson sentenced him to life in federal prison without parole.
``As a death row case, the court is required to engage in a balancing test,'' said Jackson, who has weighed the evidence for and against the 22-year-old Moore since a Sept. 19 hearing. ``The court is never required to impose the death penalty.''
In the end, Jackson said, the government did not prove that Moore had to die. Federal prosecutors did prove ``beyond a reasonable doubt'' that Moore was guilty of the July 1992 murder in Hampton of 19-year-old drug dealer Antwan ``A.J.'' Mathis - a crime to which Moore confessed last year. But prosecutors did not prove that ``substantial planning'' went into Mathis' killing, Jackson added.
Jackson also ruled that although prosecutors proved Moore was part of a large New York-to-Virginia drug ring that smuggled as much as 150 kilograms of cocaine into the area, they did not prove he sold drugs to anyone under 18.
In New York, Moore had been accused of killing his girlfriend and a neighborhood acquaintance in separate shootings there. A friend testified that Moore even ordered another man killed while Moore was in jail on New York's Rikers Island, facing murder charges.
But Jackson said he did not consider these and other aggravating factors in his decision, partly because the defense did not receive prior notice that the accusations would be used by prosecutors in their argument for the death penalty. The other murder cases are pending in New York.
Other mitigating factors included Moore's youth, history and the fact that no other co-defendants in the drug ring were sentenced to death, Jackson added. Two members of the ring got life sentences, while three others got sentences ranging from 15 1/2 to 27 years in prison.
Moore, who appeared in shackles and a striped shirt, smiled and seemed relaxed before the hearing. He hugged his lawyer, Charles R. Burke, when Jackson made his ruling.
``Life in prison without parole . . . is an adequate punishment,'' said prosecutor Fernando Groene after the hearing. ``I'm not disappointed. Justice has been served.''
Moore was the fourth defendant this year to face a possible death sentence in Norfolk federal court. The other three men - convicted of torturing and killing two people in an unrelated drug case - also were sentenced to life without parole.
Moore and the other three - Jean Claude Oscar, 34; his brother, Frantz Oscar, 27; and Arnold Mark Henry, 25 - were charged under the federal drug-kingpin law, which permits capital punishment for people convicted of murders committed as part of a continuing drug enterprise.
At Moore's trial in June, a co-defendant, Derrick Kelley, testified that he fired one shot into Mathis' face, then handed the .357 Magnum to Moore, who emptied the remaining five shots into the victim. Kelley said Moore threatened him with death if he didn't shoot Mathis.
Kelley was later acquitted of drug, murder and gun charges.
In March, Moore briefly escaped custody while awaiting trial. Moments after arriving at Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth for treatment of an undisclosed medical condition, Moore wrestled a 9 mm handgun from the Portsmouth sheriff's deputy who guarded him. He fled to the parking lot and kidnapped a bystander.
Moore was recaptured three hours later in Hertford, N.C., by two off-duty Perquimans County sheriff's deputies. Moore did not resist, and the kidnap victim, 29-year-old Charles William Farmer of Chesapeake, was released unharmed. ILLUSTRATION: ALBA BRAGOLI/Illustration
Todd Moore, 22, hugged his lawyer, Charles R. Burke, after the
decision was announced in court on Thursday. Moore had been charged
under the federal drug-kingpin law.
KEYWORDS: TRIAL SENTENCING SHOOTING MURDER ILLEGAL DRUGS by CNB