Zachary Sims pleaded innocent today to the death of Jamal Bell, a 16-year-old killed by gunfire following a Go-Go themed graduation party last June.
Sims, who turned 18 on January 1, was indicted on nine charges associated with the case including one count of first-degree murder, two counts of assault with intent to kill, and various weapons charges.
The June 18, 2010 shooting also injured two people in addition to Bell.
Judge William Jackson set a trial date of April 23 for the case.
Nardyne Jeffries’ lawsuit on the South Capitol Street “massacre” that left her daughter, Brishell Jones, and three others dead is now available in the document viewer below.
The suit alleges that the shootings were the result of “gross negligence, racial discrimination and indifference” by multiple D.C. agencies and individuals including District government, MPD, DYRS, the Housing Authority and DC Public Schools.
A 21-year-old DC man was sentenced today to 88 years in prison after he was found guilty of killing Anthony Perkins in December 2009.
According to evidence presented at trial, Antwan Holcomb contacted Perkins on a gay chat line and arranged to meet him at his house. The arrangement was a ruse to rob Perkins.
After being found guilty of that killing, Holcomb pleaded guilty to additional assault and weapons charges from crimes which took place in December 2009 and January 2010.
Read the USAO’s press release after the jump.
The US Attorney’s Office issued a press release this morning outlining their successes in murder and violent crimes prosecutions this year, the formation of a cold case homicide squad and community efforts to stop crimes from taking place.
In the release, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. cited the successful convictions of 20 murder cases in DC, including those of eight gang members.
Read the press release below.
U.S. Attorney Machen Outlines Anti-Violence Strategy, Combining Enforcement Efforts With Crime Prevention - Criminals Held Accountable as Office Builds Partnerships With Citizens -
WASHINGTON - U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said today that the office’s antiviolence initiatives have led to the convictions of more than 20 people so far this year in homicide cases and another 175 defendants on weapons charges, as well as a deeper partnership with people in all parts of the city to join law enforcement in combating crime.
The convictions reflect one part of a comprehensive approach taken by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to combat and prevent crime in the District of Columbia. Under U.S. Attorney Machen’s leadership, the office has engaged the public in discussions about ways to prevent crime, organizing more than 100 community events this year alone, including a youth summit. The office also has hosted events for ex-offenders, including a workshop to help them find jobs.
“We have matched vigorous prosecutions with vigorous engagement within our community,” said U.S. Attorney Machen. “We are working more closely than ever with District of Columbia residents to address their concerns and to hold accountable the criminals that threaten their neighborhoods with violence. The steady clip of gun prosecutions this year illustrates our devotion to taking weapons and the felons who use them off of our city streets.”
Read more
Alfred Evans, a 28-year-old man, stood before Judge Lynn Leibovitz today to take punishment for a torturous 2003 killing of a homeless drug addict which Leibovitz called incomprehensible.
Convicted twice for the murder of Reginald Brighthart, Evans was sentenced to 47 years in prison.
Said Leibovitz:
In the world where crack cocaine rules, the life of a crackhead has no value… He was a crack head and so it was fine to torment him. And when he had the nerve to fight back, that was enough [for you] to sentence him to death. You essentially told him that his life was worthless. It was beyond wrong. Beyond incomprehensible. You helped torture and execute him with his head in the toilet.
Evans’ mother cried as Leibovitz spoke, and stood up in support of her son when asked to by Evans’ defense attorney.
Read more
ProPublica’s latest installment of their excellent series on death investigation in America focuses on how child deaths are investigated and prosecuted.
Writes ProPublica:
We analyzed nearly two dozen cases in the United States and Canada in which people have been accused of killing children based on flawed or biased work by forensic pathologists, and then later cleared.
Some spent years in prison before courts overturned their convictions. In 2004, San Diego prosecutors moved to dismiss charges against a man who’d been imprisoned for two decades for murdering his girlfriend’s son.
Others were freed more swiftly but endured hardships nonetheless. An El Paso, Texas, jury acquitted a woman of killing her child in 2010, but after spending 22 months in the county jail, she still had to wage a legal battle to regain custody of her other children.
Read more
WaPo’s Keith Alexander this weekend had a report on charges of conspiracy and witness tampering against Charles Daum, a longtime D.C. defense attorney who, as Alexander reports, “faces the possibility of decades in jail and six digit fines” if convicted.
The case against him centers on his defense of Delante White, who was indicted on federal drug trafficking charges in 2008. Federal prosecutors allege that after White hired Daum, the lawyer — and two investigators, Daaiyah Pasha and her daughter, Iman, who have also been charged in the Daum case — hatched a plan to trick a jury into thinking that the drugs seized in a police raid of White’s apartment weren’t his.
The case could have implications for attorneys and high-profile clients, or those charged with serious crimes, Alexander reports.
The Washington Times is reporting that the mother of Brishell Jones, one of 6 young people killed in a drive-by shooting on South Capitol Street in 2010, has filed a lawsuit against many city agencies including the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the D.C Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department.
Nardyne Jeffries says the fatal shooting was the result of “gross negligence, racial discrimination and indifference” by the agencies.
One of the victims killed in the same shooting that claimed Brishell’s life, 18-year-old Devaughn Boyd, also was under the care of DYRS, which continues to struggle with guard beatings and youth escapes from custody at the New Beginnings Youth Development Center in Laurel.
An internal report by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General (OAG), which also is named in the lawsuit, concluded last year that DYRS could have prevented Carter’s release from jail, where he was serving time for adult convictions. The report found DYRS lacking in monitoring its juvenile wards and said its “procedures and practices favor release to the community without regard to the youth’s needs, prior criminal acts or potential for re-offending.”
The lawsuit accuses the MPD and Chief of Police Cathy Lanier of failing to protect the community from “anticipated and expected” retaliatory violence after homicides in a manner that constitutes racial discrimination against the predominantly black residents of Wards 7 and 8.
It also targets Fire and EMS for an alleged failure to adequately transport Brishell to the nearest hospital and charges that the ambulance operators “chose to run personal errands” before dispatching to the scene when they first received the emergency call.
The 17-year-old accused of fatally shooting Catholic University grad student Neil Godleski is scheduled to stand trial in February.
The teen, Eric Foreman, is charged as an adult. An indictment presented today formally charges Foreman with two counts of first degree murder, one count of robbery while armed, and six firearms crimes.
The trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 6 in Judge Thomas Motley’s courtroom.
“Family friend” wrote in today to ask about Robert Carter, a Northwest DC man suspected of fatally shooting his 13-year-old daughter, Angel Morse, in October 2010.
I want to know what is going on with the Robert Carter case it is now June..has he been convicted yet? Did he get death roll? What is going on?
Mr. Carter, who is now 40 years old, is currently in custody. The Grand Jury has not yet indicted a case against him.
By law, the Grand Jury has nine months from time of arrest to hand up an indictment in a case. In this case, July 29 (roughly) would mark the Grand Jury’s deadline.
An indictment is a formal charge against a person.
A felony status conference is scheduled for July 21. Presumably, if Mr. Carter is going to be charged, it would happen at or around that court appearance.
Usually once a case is charged, a trial date is set.
For more information about DC Superior Court, check out the excellent and easy to read Journalist’s Handbook. (It’s not just for journalists.)
