THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 20, 1996 TAG: 9607200259
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 88 lines
Rejecting claims that Royale Stewart should die for killing a delivery truck driver in front of a 7-Eleven store last year, a jury Friday sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
Stewart, who was 16 when he fatally shot Kevin Gallegos, could have been sentenced to death. He was convicted Tuesday of capital murder, attempted robbery and two firearm violations.
Stewart, now 18, could have been the first person in Hampton Roads to be given the death penalty for a crime committed while a juvenile. Now, because state legislators abolished most of the criteria for parole in 1995, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Jurors deliberated for about an hour. When the sentence was read, Stewart's family and friends sobbed and whispered thank-yous.
``I'm glad they didn't send my baby to the electric chair,'' Stewart's mother, Barbara Wilson, said after the sentencing. ``He has another chance in life. I just feel anything is better than death.''
The life sentence was for the capital murder conviction only. Circuit Judge John E. Clarkson will hand down the sentences for the remaining three charges when Stewart is formally sentenced Oct. 10.
Gallegos, 29, was slain Feb. 10, 1995, at the 7-Eleven store at Hampton Boulevard and 40th Street, near Old Dominion University. He was talking on a pay phone outside the store when Stewart shot him once with a semiautomatic handgun. He collapsed inside the store and later died at a hospital.
The sentence brought relief to the Gallegos family, said Kevin's widow, Malinda.
``He will be in a controlled environment, so there's no way he can hurt anybody else, and that's good,'' she said. ``I can live with that.''
She also was pleased Stewart is not slated to die.
``We have wrestled with our own conscience. We are not the makers of life. We also don't have the right to be takers of life. It was something we felt good about.''
Jon Babineau, Stewart's attorney, agreed that the jury acted in good conscience.
``I'm just glad society has not been reduced to deciding that death is the only punishment for a 16-year-old convicted of a serious offense,'' he said.
Stewart, Babineau said, is pleased with the sentence, but eager to appeal the case.
Prosecutor Lisa McKeel said the commonwealth was thankful for the capital murder conviction.
``We knew we had an uphill battle'' in seeking the death penalty against a juvenile, she said.
During the sentencing phase, McKeel and co-prosecutor Phil Evans argued that Stewart had played a pivotal role in the slaying last year of Gerald Crandle, who also was a suspect in the Gallegos killing. Stewart has been accused of arranging Crandle's murder from jail. Stewart is scheduled to go to trial on those charges July 29.
The third co-defendant in the Gallegos killing - Ocie Wilson - goes to trial Monday.
``Look at who Royale Stewart is,'' Evans said during closing remarks. ``You will know by his actions, and not his words; you cannot trust his words.''
Babineau and co-counsel Jack Doyle countered by emphasizing Stewart's good behavior in jail and his love for family.
``If we allow ourselves to govern and rule by our most base emotions - he killed, so he should be killed - isn't that anarchy?'' Babineau said in his closing. ``I ask each and every one of you to have conviction, conscience. . .
The sentence brought to an end a grueling two-week trial that painted a disturbing picture of Stewart, whose run-ins with the law began when he was barely a teenager.
As the trial shifted into the sentencing phase, attorneys dissected his character, his reaction to discipline, the presence of male role models in his life, his descent as a teen into lawlessness and his involvement with drugs.
Family members testified that until he was 12, he lived under the strict, but loving, care of his great-grandparents, Roy and Mary Stewart.
Things changed when he moved in back with his mother.
He became more rebellious, hanging out with the wrong crowds and staying out sometimes until 3 a.m., according to testimony.
The last witness to take the stand Friday was Barbara Wilson, Stewart's mother. During her tearful testimony, Stewart lowered his head on the defense table and cried. His tears were his first sign of emotion during the trial.
Speaking in a low, solemn tone on the stand Friday, he mentioned the lyrics of a rap song that refer to ``a life, a love and a king.''
``At one point in time I had really blinded myself to the meaning of that,'' he said.
Now, he said, his view has changed.
``A life is precious, and it's what you make it. Love yourself to get others to love you. He who has the most knowledge is the king.''
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING TRIAL SENTENCING JUVENILE by CNB