Supreme Court grants retrial for death row inmate

When Chauncey Starling was found guilty of the 2001 murder of a young boy and man in a Wilmington barbershop, the community cried out against the senseless gun violence plaguing the city.

Now, more than a decade later, the Delaware Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence and ordered a retrial for Starling, who is accused of murdering Damon J. "DJ" Gist Jr., 5, and Darnell Evans, 28.

"Darnell Evans and Damon Gist, Jr. were the victims of a heinous and violent crime," Supreme Court Justice Collins Seitz Jr. wrote in a 43-page decision Monday. "Starling stands accused of the murders and must face trial. Like all citizens, he is entitled to a fair trial that adheres to the procedural requirements with effective representation. Because those procedural requirements were not met, and counsel defending him was ineffective, we are compelled to reverse and remand for a new trial and proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion."

David Fragale and Jeremy Engle, the attorneys representing Starling, praised the ruling and said there is no reliable evidence on which to retry Starling.

"The victims and their families deserve justice. However, it was a crime that Chauncey Starling did not commit," they wrote in a statement. "The court's decision reversing Mr. Starling's conviction is consistent with his innocence."

A spokesman for Attorney General Matt Denn's office did not say how prosecutors plan to proceed.

"We’re evaluating the court’s decision," spokesman Carl Kanefsky said.

On March 9, 2001, a masked gunman opened fire in the Made 4 Men barbershop at Fourth and Shipley streets. The shooter was targeting Evans but unintentionally hit DJ.

The barbershop's owner, Lawrence Moore, pursued the shooter but ultimately abandoned the chase. No patrons in the shop could identify the shooter, and no DNA, fingerprints or murder weapon were recovered, according to court documents.

The shooter's identity was a mystery until about a month later when Pennsylvania police discovered a gunshot victim, Alfred Gaines, in Chester, Pennsylvania. Gaines claimed Starling had shot him and had also committed the barbershop shooting, according to court documents.

Starling was indicted on first-degree murder and other charges in November 2001.

At his trial, the state's key witness, Gaines, testified that he and Starling were driving in Wilmington when Starling saw Evans through the barbershop window and stopped to go in.

Prosecutors also relied on a statement in which Starling's brother, Michael, told detectives his brother was sorry for what he did to the boy, the court decision said.

And, finally, Evans' girlfriend testified that Starling was the shooter – based solely on his eyes, which she claimed she saw beneath the mask while she was standing outside the barbershop, the decision said.

Starling was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2004. After being sentenced, he shouted, "I'm innocent, man. I'm innocent."

Wilmington Mayor James M. Baker said at the time that the shootings have to stop.

"This incident shows the serious consequence of the senseless act of using a gun against someone, in that the tragedy has been expanded to include not only the victims of the shooting, but now another person is condemned to die," he said.

The attorneys representing Starling appealed his conviction, and in October, argued to the Supreme Court that Starling should get a retrial.

The court agreed on Monday and found that "mistakes were made that undermine confidence in the fairness of the trial," Seitz wrote.

The court noted that Starling's trial counsel failed to examine an eyewitness to the shooting, even though that eyewitness said Starling did not appear to be the shooter after he saw a picture of him in the newspaper.

The court also found that the trial counsel should have objected to Starling's brother's statement to police because the 23-year-old brother was held for hours and threatened with prosecution if he did not provide a statement.

Finally, the court found that the state misrepresented to the defense that charges against Gaines for a violation of probation and order calling for his arrest were still pending, when in fact, the charges had been dropped, the decision said.

"This mistake, unintentional as it was, deprived the defense of important evidence that might have been used to attack the credibility of the state's main witness," Seitz wrote.

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"The cumulative effect of each of these errors leads us to conclude that there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different without the errors," he wrote.

Praising the decision, Starling's attorneys said there is no evidence for the state to retry the case.

"If the State of Delaware chooses to do so anyway, we are confident that a fair trial will lead to his complete exoneration and allow Mr. Starling to return home to his family where he belongs," the attorneys said.

The Supreme Court has in recent years overturned several death sentences and ordered retrials.

Most recently, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction and death sentence for Isaiah McCoy, who was accused of murdering 30-year-old James Munford in the Rodney Village Bowling Alley parking lot during a drug deal. The court cited the unprofessional conduct of a deputy attorney general who has since been suspended from practicing law in Delaware.

The top court also granted a retrial last year for Jermaine Wright, the man accused of the 1991 murder of Phillip Seifert, a disabled liquor store clerk. The court is now having to consider whether the videotaped interview of Wright should be allowed at his retrial.

The death sentence reversals come as the debate over the death penalty heats up. Legislation to repeal Delaware's death penalty passed the Senate, but was blocked by the House Judiciary Committee in a 6-5 vote in May.

Contact Jessica Masulli Reyes at (302) 324-2777, jmreyes@delawareonline.com or Twitter @JessicaMasulli.