THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 9, 1994 TAG: 9412090603
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B9 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
TYPE: Virginia News
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
The 15-year-old charged with the execution-style killing of a Wythe County sheriff's deputy is unlikely to face execution if convicted of capital murder, lawyers and legal experts said.
Wythe County Commonwealth's Attorney Tommy Baird said he will attempt to try Christopher Shawn Wheeler as an adult on a capital murder charge and seek the death penalty if he's found guilty.
Deputy Cliff Dicker, 57, was shot Tuesday with a rifle and his service revolver. Sheriff Wayne Pike said Wednesday that Wheeler doesn't deny that he committed the crime while the officer was attempting to arrest him on a juvenile charge of auto theft.
Standing in the prosecutor's way is a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits the execution of someone who was younger than 16 at the time of the crime. The high court in 1988 ruled that would be cruel and unusual punishment.
That decision, Thompson vs. Oklahoma, was cited in October by a Norfolk judge who barred prosecutors from seeking the death penalty for a 15-year-old boy accused of killing a taxi driver in an attempted robbery.
Lawyers said the Thompson case likely would apply to the prosecution of Wheeler.
``I would say Thompson right now is the law of the land,'' said Tony Anderson, a Roanoke lawyer who has defended four capital murder defendants.
``As far as I know, no Circuit Court judge in Virginia has ever ruled that a 15-year-old can be executed,'' said Robert Frank, a Norfolk lawyer who successfully argued against the death-penalty prosecution of his client in the taxi robbery.
William Geimer, a Washington and Lee University law professor who assists lawyers in capital cases, said he knows of about five recent cases in which Virginia prosecutors sought the death penalty for someone younger than 16 - all of them with the same result.
``In every one of those prosecutions, the death penalty goes out of the case,'' Geimer said.
The Thompson case involved a 15-year-old convicted of brutally killing his brother-in-law, who had been abusing the boy's sister. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the court's majority opinion that ``the execution of a person who was less than 16 years old at the time of the offense would offend civilized standards of decency.''
Frank said a 15-year-old still has a chance of rehabilitation, no matter how horrible his crime.
Wheeler still could be tried as an adult and convicted of capital murder, lawyers said, but the most severe punishment he would face would be life in prison. by CNB