THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 7, 1995 TAG: 9506070448
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS AND JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
After deliberating 3 1/2 hours, jurors on Tuesday could not agree whether Marvin Owens should be executed for killing his grandmother, half-brother and two cousins last summer.
That means Owens, 16 , will automatically be sentenced to life in prison. Had he been sentenced to death, Owens would have been the youngest resident of Virginia's death row.
He will be sentenced officially Aug. 1.
Last week, the same jury convicted Owens of capital murder in the quadruple shooting on Seaboard Road. The jury returned Monday to hear evidence about Owens' sentence and to determine his fate.
By Monday's end, after two hours of deliberation, the jury declared itself deadlocked. Circuit Judge Robert B. Cromwell Jr. sent the jurors home for the night.
On Tuesday, the jurors returned for another 90 minutes of deliberation. Again, they sent word to the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked.
Later, outside the courtroom, jury foreman Edward E. Brickell - president of Eastern Virginia Medical School and former Virginia Beach school superintendent - declined to discuss the case or explain why the jury could not reach a consensus.
Cromwell told the jurors he was not disappointed by their split. ``I can appreciate the difficulty of making a decision between life and death,'' the judge said.
Later, Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys said the jury's action was not unexpected. ``We knew going in, given the defendant's age, that the death penalty was a longshot,'' he said.
Owens' attorney, B. Thomas Reed, speculated that his client's young age, his lack of a previous record of violence and the fact that he was convicted on circumstantial evidence were factors in the jury's indecision.
After the hearing, Owens returned to the City Jail in his city-issued orange jumpsuit.
Minutes later, Owens' mother, Wanda Williams, declared, ``It's a relief, it really is. . . I'm a whole lot relieved.'' She said she hoped her son could eventually be paroled and get a second chance to ``straighten up.''
Owens will be eligible for parole in about 26 years.
Owens was convicted of fatally shooting his 63-year-old grandmother and one-time legal guardian, Evelyn Ward; his cousin, Clifton Harper, 19; another cousin, Thelma Harper, 37; and his half-brother, Robert L. Ward Jr., 14.
During closing arguments Monday, prosecutors tried to convince jurors that Owens' actions met the legal requirement for the death penalty by showing vileness and potential danger. Although only one of the two is required for the death penalty, prosecutors argued that Owens' crimes met both.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Janee Joslin asked: ``What does it take for someone to execute four people while they are sleeping? What kind of man can shoot their family in the head?''
Owens could have left after shooting Harper, or even after shooting the other two people in the room, but he made the decision to go upstairs and shoot his grandmother, too, she said.
``After all this brutality, he has shown no remorse, not even in his lies can he muster remorse,'' she said.
But Cynthia Barnaby, one of Owens' attorneys, argued that her client should not be sentenced to die.
She told jurors to consider his age, background, and the fact that he was moved from one hotel room to another in filthy conditions with sometimes only an oven in the room for heat. His father is in federal prison, his step-father in jail and his mother in and out of jail, she said.
``He has nothing in his life that adds up to discipline, that adds up to structure,'' she said. ``To a 16-year-old boy, life in prison may be worse than death. For every second of every minute of every day he's incarcerated, he'll be reminded of what he's done.''
In his portion of the closing argument, Humphreys asked: ``If this man at his age is capable of coldly eliminating four loved ones for $1,200 in drug proceeds, what is he capable of if you give him a really good reason to get mad?''
Testifying in his own defense last week, Owens said he accidentally shot Clifton Harper when he was showing him the gun. Owens said he dropped the gun and called 911, but was interrupted when a man named Dee picked up the gun, pointed it at him and told him to get out.
But Humphreys told the jury that Owens had lied over and over about the July 22 shooting, one of two quadruple murders in Virginia Beach last summer. Humphreys said Owens told 15 different versions of events during a 7 1/2-hour videotaped interview with police, then told a 16th story on the witness stand.
The jury convicted Owens of capital murder for killing two or more people, first-degree murder for killing Clifton Harper, four firearms charges and robbery.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Janee Joslin said Owens went to the house intending to rob Harper, a known cocaine dealer, and then killed everyone there.
``His motive: $1,200 and no witnesses,'' she said.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING JUVENILE
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