THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 26, 1995 TAG: 9507260368
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
Lawyers representing Kelly Dara, charged in the stabbing death of her Salem High School classmate, failed to convince a judge on Tuesday that prosecutors intentionally withheld evidence favorable to her case.
Dara is scheduled for trial on Aug. 30 in the killing of 17-year-old Joseph D. Garcia III.
Detective Dennis Hebert testified Tuesday that he could not be sure that prosecutors had a copy of the statement favorable to Dara's case until March 30, when he hand-delivered the case report to the commonwealth's attorney's office. Although he had provided the prosecution with some information earlier, he did not know if the favorable statement from the co-defendant's interview with North Carolina authorities was included, he said.
Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Albert Alberi has said he did not intentionally withhold the statement from Dara's lawyers. He said he didn't know he had it at the time of her Juvenile Court hearing and had not read it.
But on Tuesday, Thomas B. Shuttleworth, representing Dara, argued that questions Alberi posed to Hebert in a hearing prior to March 30 seemed to indicate that he had read the statement by co-defendant Joshua Johnson.
``The questions and answers track the statement as if it were a script,'' Shuttleworth said.
But Judge Thomas S. Shadrick disagreed and denied Shuttleworth's motion to dismiss the charges against Dara.
She was 17 when she and Johnson, her boyfriend at the time, were accused in Garcia's death. Charges against her traveled the usual route of juvenile proceedings and were transferred to adult court.
But once in Circuit Court, prosecutors announced that they would not pursue the charges of murder, attempted robbery and conspiracy.
Prosecutors refiled the charges in Juvenile Court, but the juvenile judge said his court no longer had jurisdiction. Instead, prosecutors sought and received grand jury indictments on identical charges.
``The question that no one has answered is why should she have to face the adult system without getting a proper transfer hearing with exculpatory evidence?'' Lawrence H. Woodward Jr., one of the Dara's attorneys, said Tuesday.
In June, a jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder, attempted robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery and recommended that he be sentenced to life in prison. His sentencing is set for Sept. 6. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Kelly Dara's trial is set for Aug. 30 in Virginia Beach for the
killing of 17-year-old Joseph D. Garcia III.
KEYWORDS: MURDER JUVENILE STABBING by CNB