ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 2, 1996 TAG: 9604020084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
note: below
BUT THE JUDGE admitted she wished there were a more appropriate alternative for a man who set his first fire - a fatal blaze - when he was 7.
When a 7-year-old boy set a fire that killed a Northwest Roanoke woman in 1982, a judge did not convict him of murder - hoping instead to find a way to address the youth's mental and emotional problems.
On Monday, 14 years and two more arson charges later, authorities admitted that nothing more could be done for Jermaine K. Anderson.
Roanoke Circuit Judge Diane Strickland reluctantly sentenced Anderson to 20 years in prison for a 1994 arson, even though everyone involved in the case agreed that penitentiary time was not the best punishment for someone with the mind of a small child.
"I will be the first to admit that the penitentiary will not help Jermaine Anderson," Strickland told Anderson, who is now 20. "While I am mindful of your needs, I must also be mindful of the needs of the public, and I must be sure that they are protected.
"With all my heart, I wish there was something else I could do," Strickland said as she imposed the sentence.
In 1982, after Anderson set a fire near his Patton Avenue Northwest home that spread to an adjacent house and killed a 66-year-old woman, a judge dismissed a murder charge because the 7-year-old was too immature to stand trial. In 1984, after Anderson was charged with torching a shed in his neighborhood, a judge ordered him to receive counseling and complete a program about the dangers of fire.
The most recent charge involved a December 1994 fire that Anderson set in his home, endangering the lives of his grandmother and two other relatives. He was also convicted of attempted malicious wounding for throwing a knife at a police officer who responded to the fire.
"How many fires have you started?'' Strickland asked Anderson, who seemed to concentrate after each question before responding haltingly.
"Three that I know of," he said.
Asked to explain why, Anderson replied, "I can't think of no reason."
Extensive psychiatric testing found that Anderson was not legally insane or mentally retarded. "But he's probably about as close as you can get," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Phillips said.
In asking for a prison sentence, Phillips said he was doing so only after being disappointed to learn that there was no other program that would offer Anderson treatment while keeping him off the streets.
Assistant Public Defender William Fitzpatrick had found a facility in Pennsylvania that would have treated Anderson - but Anderson is too poor to pay the program's rate of $350 a day.
Because Anderson is overweight and mentally slow, he has already been subject to harassment by other inmates in the Roanoke City Jail. One inmate has been convicted of assaulting him, and Anderson has since been placed in isolation for his own protection.
Prison will only be worse, Fitzpatrick said, and Anderson may have to spend his entire term in isolation. But he will eventually be released, Fitzpatrick said, "and after 25 years of him not talking to another living soul, I don't know who would be comfortable with that situation."
According to a psychiatric evaluation, Anderson suffers from an intermittent explosive disorder, which makes him prone to violent outbursts if he does not take medication. Anderson - who didn't learn how to tie his shoes until he was 15 - is unable to care for himself because of his emotional and mental problems.
"He's a sick boy," said his grandmother, Jean Anderson Mack, who raised him. "He doesn't need to go to prison; he needs to go to a hospital somewhere."
But testimony from Lt. J.E. Lahar , the police officer who had to duck to avoid being hit by a knife Anderson hurled at him the night of Dec. 21, 1994, supported Phillips' assertion that the three-time arsonist is "flat-out dangerous to society."
After being called to the Patton Avenue house, Lahar said, he saw Anderson peering down from the top of the staircase, with flames rising behind him. Anderson then threw a 12-inch knife that missed the officer by inches.
After Anderson put up such a fight that police had to use pepper spray to subdue him, authorities were told how the fire started.
Anderson had been acting strangely for several days, according to his grandmother. When she mentioned that he might have to go to a mental hospital, Anderson became irate and out of control. "The look in his eyes I will never forget," Mack testified.
Anderson then lit a piece of paper on the stove, ran upstairs and started a fire in a closet.
The blaze endangered the lives of three people in the home, but prosecutors agreed to drop charges of attempted murder.
"I don't know who he may try to kill again," Lahar testified in asking Strickland to impose a lengthy prison sentence. "But I am terrified that he will try to kill again."
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