MORGANTOWN (AP) — Prosecutors preparing for a
federal civil rights trial later this month say they will present
evidence that shows a West Virginia sheriff accused of beating a bank
robbery suspect has abused his power before — and gotten away with it.
Documents
filed in U.S. District Court in Martinsburg show that the evidence
includes testimony Jefferson County Sheriff Robert Shirley gave during a
2004 sentencing hearing in an unrelated case. A transcript reveals
Shirley admitted firing a gun while on duty during a personal dispute
with another man.
That transcript, which shows the shooting never
resulted in criminal charges or prosecution, "is evidence of defendant's
readiness to abuse the power of his position," Assistant U.S. Attorney
Paul Camilletti wrote in a notice filed with the court last week.
Shirley's
attorney, Kevin Mills, now wants the trial postponed so he can survey
the potential jury pool and determine whether he should seek to have the
case moved to another circuit. Besides ignoring Shirley's "long history
of dedicated community service," Mills said, the government's filing
and media coverage about it could compromise his client's right to a
fair trial.
His motion calls the proposed evidence "highly inflammatory and presumably inadmissible."
"The
result of this public filing is a poisoning of the pool of potential
jurors right before the jury is slated to be picked," Mills wrote,
adding that witnesses will now have to be re-interviewed.
"There
are a myriad of prejudicial effects flowing from the government waiting
until the eve of trial to dump all this information into the local and
national presses," Mills argued.
Prosecutors could have opted for a
closed filing, Mills said, to let the court rule on admissibility of
the evidence "but for reasons unknown to the defense, they chose not
to."
Shirley is accused of kicking and stomping Mark Daniel Haines
after a December 2010 police chase and falsifying records during a
subsequent investigation.
Judge John Preston Bailey has scheduled
Shirley's criminal trial for Jan. 22 in Martinsburg. A separate civil
lawsuit is tentatively scheduled to be tried this fall.
Shirley,
who was re-elected in November, has denied any wrongdoing and vowed that
he will be vindicated. Haines, meanwhile, is serving a 19-year sentence
for bank robbery.
The notice to the court says prosecutors will
also introduce two video recordings from May 30, 2012, that show Shirley
and another uniformed officer in what appears to be a booking room. The
nature of the discussion on one video was not revealed. Prosecutors say
the other tape has no audio.
The transcript, meanwhile, is from a
sentencing hearing that former U.S. District Judge Craig Broadwater was
holding in a separate case.
Shirley, a lieutenant with 23 years
of service at the time, was testifying for prosecutors when he was
questioned about his dealings with a man named Scott Rind over a piece
of furniture that Rind had allegedly refinished and sold, knowing it
belonged to Shirley.
Shirley testified that his wife, Debbie, had cheated on him with Rind years earlier.
"I
was working one day, and I drove up on them and caught them in the
act," he testified. "I shot at him one time, and that was it."
An attorney then asked if he typically shoots people who are sleeping with his wife while he's on duty.
"Well, I had never been faced with that before, but I did that time," Shirley responded. "I don't typically, no."
Shirley and his wife later divorced.
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