THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 17, 1994 TAG: 9412170250
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
A state appeals court will reconsider its decision ordering a new trial for a man convicted of the 1991 murder of Effie Rakes, an 81-year-old Franklin County widow.
A three-judge panel of the Virginia Court of Appeals reversed Kirby DeHart's conviction in October, ruling that a Franklin County judge erred in refusing to strike a potential juror for DeHart's 1992 trial.
But the attorney general's office asked the court to reconsider, and the panel agreed Wednesday to listen to additional arguments, said Cliff Hapgood, Franklin County's commonwealth's attorney. Hapgood prosecuted DeHart.
``We've felt all along that the decision made by the appeals court was the wrong one,'' he said. ``This . . . doesn't mean they're going to change their mind, but it gives us a chance we didn't think we were going to have.''
A new hearing date has not been set.
Blaylock told the panel this past summer that a woman interviewed as a possible juror for DeHart's trial expressed doubt about her ability to be objective.
The woman was accepted into the required pool of 20 possible jurors but later was struck by prosecutors using the first of four disqualifications given to both sides.
Effie Rakes was found shot to death on the floor of her Shooting Creek home in June 1991. Rakes had raised nine children and still was taking care of an invalid daughter when she was slain.
Prosecutors said Rakes had caught her killer trying to molest her daughter, then 55 years old and unable to talk.
DeHart was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
KEYWORDS: APPEAL MURDER SHOOTING by CNB