State v. Shafer
| Decision Date | 03 June 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 15–0115,15–0115 |
| Citation | 237 W.Va. 616,789 S.E.2d 153 |
| Parties | State of West Virginia, Plaintiff Below, Respondent v. Timothy Paul Shafer, Defendant Below, Petitioner |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Brian D. Yost, Esq., Holroyd & Yost, Charleston, West Virginia, Counsel for the Petitioner.
Patrick Morrisey, Esq., Attorney General, Katlyn M. Miller, Esq., Assistant Attorney General, Charleston, West Virginia, Counsel for the Respondent.
, Justice:
In this appeal, petitioner Timothy Shafer challenges his sentence of life in the penitentiary without mercy for his felony murder conviction. Having carefully reviewed Mr. Shafer's case, we find no error in his sentence.
In early 2014, Mr. Shafer was a drug addict, using heroin and methamphetamine. He contends that his girlfriend at the time, Megan Hughes, was also addicted to drugs and that they would use drugs together.
Mr. Shafer, Ms. Hughes, and a friend of the couple, Jessica Wilson, conspired to rob Nancy Lynch (“the victim”) of money to buy illegal drugs. The victim was sixty-six years old, and she lived alone with her dog, Hazel, in St. Albans, West Virginia. Mr. Shafer claimed he and Ms. Hughes got the idea to rob the victim after he and Hughes had a chance encounter with the victim. During the encounter, the victim told Mr. Shafer and Ms. Hughes that she had been robbed three or four times in the past but that she did not report the robberies because she feared repercussions from the robbers.
Sometime on the evening of January 3 or 4, 2014, Mr. Shafer and Ms. Wilson decided to rob the victim in her home. Mr. Shafer maintains that he targeted the victim because he did not believe she would report the robbery. There is no evidence in the record to suggest that Mr. Shafer or Ms. Wilson were under the influence of drugs at this time. Mr. Shafer and Ms. Wilson left on foot from Ms. Wilson's home. According to Mr. Shafer, he took a toy gun and put it in his pants, intending to use it to threaten the victim. He contended that Ms. Wilson took a long kitchen knife and put it in her pants. Neither Mr. Shafer nor Ms. Wilson wore masks or gloves. Mr. Shafer claims that he did not believe any violence would be necessary to rob the victim.
When Mr. Shafer and Ms. Wilson arrived at the victim's home, the victim was not there. They waited for her, and she later returned home from a shopping trip to K–Mart. Mr. Shafer, Ms. Wilson, and the victim spoke together outside the home until Mr. Shafer lifted his shirt so that the victim could see the gun and insisted that they all go into the house. Mr. Shafer later told police that the victim did not take him seriously. In response to the victim's indifference, he asserts that Ms. Wilson pulled the knife out of her pants and pushed the victim inside. Once inside the house, Ms. Wilson demanded money and pills. The victim told Ms. Wilson that she had $13 in her purse, but upon inspection of the purse, Ms. Wilson found $16 and an ATM card. According to Mr. Shafer, Ms. Wilson ordered the victim to provide her with the pin number to the card, but the victim responded with a string of different numbers.
Mr. Shafer theorized that Ms. Wilson was angered by the victim's lies about the amount of money in the purse and the ATM card pin number. He told police that Ms. Wilson told him to look away, and that as soon as he looked away, Ms. Wilson began quickly stabbing the victim in the chest and neck area. Mr. Shafer said he turned around as soon as he heard the stabbing and watched Ms. Wilson stab the victim to death. The victim was stabbed nineteen times. After the victim fell to the floor, Ms. Wilson covered her with a blanket. Ms. Wilson put the victim's dog, which had been outside during the attack, in the house.
Directly after the killing, Mr. Shafer and Ms. Wilson left the victim's house with the victim's ATM card, two pistols, a camera with lenses, jewelry, and prescription medications. They tried to withdraw cash using the ATM card, but the pin numbers they tried failed. They returned to Ms. Wilson's home where Ms. Hughes was waiting. Ms. Hughes sorted through the stolen property. Mr. Shafer and Ms. Wilson then went back to the victim's home to steal one of the victim's cars. Mr. Shafer used the stolen car to drive to a separate location where he traded the victim's property for heroin, prescription narcotics, and $150. He used the money he acquired to buy methamphetamine from another person. Upon acquiring the drugs, Mr. Shafer drove back to Ms. Wilson's home where he, Ms. Wilson, and Ms. Hughes used the drugs.
The next day, Mr. Shafer returned to the victim's home with Ms. Hughes. They took jewelry, pills, a flat-screen television, and the victim's checkbook from the home. Within a week of the victim's death, Mr. Shafer and Ms. Hughes again went to the victim's home to take the victim's second car. Mr. Shafer asserted that the victim's dog was alive during these trips. Mr. Shafer, Ms. Wilson, and Ms. Hughes pawned the victim's jewelry, sold one of the two cars for scrap, and Mr. Shafer used the victim's checkbook to write six checks to himself.
Sometime during the weeks following the victim's death, Mr. Shafer took the victim's mail, which had been accumulating in her mailbox, after Ms. Wilson told him she had seen a police officer near the house. A neighbor who was concerned that she had not seen the victim called the police. The police visited the victim's home twice but could see no evidence of foul play and noted that the victim's doors were locked.
A friend discovered the victim's decaying body on January 26, 2014. The friend had gone to the victim's home to check on her. When she arrived at the home, she found a door unlocked and went inside. In addition to finding her friend dead, the friend also found the dead body of the victim's dog. Police believed the dog's death was the result of neglect.
Mr. Shafer, Ms. Wilson, and Ms. Hughes were all arrested in connection with the victim's murder and the burglary of her home. Mr. Shafer was indicted on multiple felony charges, including first degree murder. The State made a plea offer to Mr. Shafer. The plea offer required Mr. Shafer to plead guilty to one count of first degree murder in the commission of the felony offense for first degree robbery (felony murder),1 one count of conspiracy, three counts of burglary by breaking and entering, and two counts of grand larceny. In exchange, the State agreed to recommend that the circuit court sentence Mr. Shafer to life with mercy on the felony murder charge. The State also agreed to stand silent on the issue of whether his sentences should run consecutive or concurrent to each other. Mr. Shafer accepted the plea offer.
A plea hearing took place on July 11, 2014. During the plea hearing, Mr. Shafer answered in the affirmative each time he was asked if he understood that the State's recommendations as to sentencing were not binding upon the court. By order entered on July 11, 2014, the circuit court accepted Mr. Shafer's guilty plea to one count of conspiracy, three counts of burglary by breaking and entering, first degree murder, and two counts of grand larceny.
The Division of Probation Services prepared a presentence investigation report in advance of sentencing. The report revealed that as a juvenile, Mr. Shafer was arrested and charged with breaking and entering for which he was sentenced to twenty-four hours of community service. In addition to being charged with a string of driving related offenses between 2004 and 2011, Mr. Shafer was convicted for attempting to commit daytime burglary in 2010 and was placed on probation with day report programming, the terms of which he violated twice. Mr. Shafer also has an extensive history of illicit drug use and addiction. According to the report, Mr. Shafer left school in eighth grade but later acquired his GED and one college credit while incarcerated. The report concludes that Mr. Shafer would be likely to reoffend if he did not receive a very high level of supervision and treatment and that “he has little regard for human life.”
A sentencing hearing was held on August 22, 2014. The circuit court heard statements from Mr. Shafer, parties' counsel, and family of the victim. Mr. Shafer told the court:
I'd again like to apologize to the family. There's no excuse or reason for the things that happened. If I could take it all back, I would. I know that doesn't make anything right. I'll never be able to, to say exactly how sorry I am. At this time I just—I'm ready to take my punishment because I know I did—the things that I did was [sic] wrong. It was all over a stupid drug habit.
When asked by the court about “continuing to violate the decedent by going back to her home time after time after time,” Mr. Shafer said:
There is no excuse. I mean, I look back on things now that, you know, I, you know, I haven't done anything; and I look on things now and I just—there is no excuse for the things that was [sic] done. There will never be any kind of excuse for any kind, any kind of behavior like that, whether it be on drugs or not on drugs, for anyone.
The State's counsel recommended that the court sentence Mr. Shafer to life in the penitentiary with mercy for his participation in the victim's murder. The State explained that the recommendation of mercy was based on Mr. Shafer's cooperation with the State in other criminal investigations, including those of his co-defendants.
A relative of the victim, Judy Cleary, asked the circuit court to sentence Mr. Shafer to life in the penitentiary without mercy. She gave the following statement:
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