McLEAN, Va. — A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Virginia should be allowed to pursue a capital murder case against an alleged drug kingpin from northern Virginia, overruling a lower court that had sought to put an end to the 12-year legal saga by ordering his unconditional release.
In a 2-1 ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond overturned a federal judge in Norfolk who had ordered a halt to the prosecution of Justin Wolfe, who faces death penalty charges in Prince William County for the 2001 slaying of a large-scale marijuana supplier, Daniel Petrole.
The district court judge, Raymond Jackson, said misconduct by prosecutors in Prince William County made it impossible for Wolfe to get a fair trial.
But a majority on the appellate court disagreed. Judges Robert Bruce King and Allyson Kay Duncan ruled that a new trial can be done fairly. They wrote that Jackson “fashioned an overbroad remedy and thereby abused (his) discretion by precluding the Commonwealth from retrying Wolfe.”
A dissenting judge, Stephanie Thacker, said the misconduct was so bad that freeing Wolfe was the only proper outcome. She reeled off a long list of examples of misconduct, including failures by Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert to disclose evidence that would have undermined the credibility of the state’s star witness.
Wolfe’s case has now been in front of the appeals court three separate times. He was sentenced to death after his 2002 conviction in Manassas, and spent a nearly a decade on death row. In 2011, Jackson overturned Wolfe’s conviction and the appeals court upheld his action.
Source: AP, May 22, 2013
