Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 22, 1991 TAG: 9102220549
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
It took jurors 2 1/2 hours to return with a 22-year sentence against Earl Woodrow Dooley, a skinny, balding man with glasses, who showed no emotion as the verdict was read.
Dooley had admitted shooting his 61-year-old brother, Tunney, last June but insisted during the three-day trial that it was not murder.
Dooley claimed he was merely defending himself when his brother, who was known for getting drunk and being mean, showed up at his Bedford apartment.
Imploring jurors to find Dooley not guilty by reason of self-defense, his defense attorney tried to make them imagine the circumstances.
"There's a violent, drunk man, who had [in the past] shot at him and cut him, there in a small, cramped apartment with his wife asleep in the back room," attorney Webster Hogeland said in his closing statement.
Earl Dooley believed that his brother was lunging at him with a knife, so he protected himself, Hogeland said.
The fact that the pocket knife was closed when it was found later and that it was only 3 inches long made no difference, Hogeland said. Earl Dooley perceived himself to be in imminent danger, and he acted on that perception, Hogeland said.
"The law of self-defense exists not to protect Earl Dooley, but to protect all of us," Hogeland said. "If somebody comes in your house in the middle of the night . . . by God, I hope the law of self-defense would be there to protect you."
Prosecutor James Updike argued for a first-degree - or premeditated - murder conviction, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Updike told jurors that Dooley decided to kill his brother a few days before the shooting. At a drinking party on Taylors Mountain, where the Dooleys were raised, Tunney had called him a "freeloader," and Earl Dooley pledged to get him for that, a prosecution witness testified.
By "the code of the mountain," Earl Dooley did not want to kill his brother on his brother's property, Updike said. So he waited to get Tunney on his own property - the apartment in Bedford, Updike said.
The excuse of self-defense was all part of the scheme, he said.
Another old code of the mountain, Updike said, was that law enforcement officials weren't to be involved in crimes on Taylors Mountain.
There, he said, they prefer to "solve it themselves."
If Earl Dooley isn't convicted of murder, the prosecutor said, "the code of the mountain will be brought down into this courtroom, instead of the Code of Virginia."
Deterrence was an important consideration, Updike told the jurors, "for those who think they can take out their own problems through the barrel of a rifle."
Circuit Judge William Sweeney will formally sentence Dooley after a background report is filed.
Dooley, who has a 1-month-old baby, left for the county jail after the verdict. "He's an old man in bad health, and jail is going to be very hard on him," Hogeland said. "Of course we're disappointed, and of course we're going to appeal."
by CNB