Prosecutors are planning to drop all charges this morning against one of three men accused in the shooting death of a 23-year-old Columbia computer student last winter.
There is "insufficient evidence" to take the murder case against Robert Lee Burgess, 18, to trial in February, Deputy State's Attorney I. Matthew Campbell said yesterday. The cases against Burgess' cousins, Tavon Donya Sands and Jonas L. Askins, will proceed, he said.
"Each case has to be analyzed on its own," he said. He said he could not elaborate on the decision to drop murder, armed-robbery and related charges against Burgess.
"Ours is a line of work that is driven by the evidence," he said.
Burgess, who has been jailed on no-bond status since May, had been accused of participating - along with Sands, 21, and Askins, 18 - in a botched robbery that left DeShawn Anthony Wallace dead on a parking lot in the 5800 block of Stevens Forest Road on Jan. 25.
Authorities have not alleged that Burgess was the gunman, and Burgess' lawyer said yesterday that his client had three alibi witnesses for the night of the killing. Sands is accused of firing the fatal shot, according to court testimony.
"What I am most impressed by is the state's willingness, having thoroughly investigated the case now ... to have the courage to go ahead and dismiss the case," said Burgess' attorney, Charles Jerome Ware, who issued a news release about the prosecutors' decision yesterday.
Ware said Burgess maintains that he was not at the scene of the killing and that he was taking care of his sick girlfriend and toddler son at the time. Ware said he received "thousands" of pages of investigative documents from prosecutors in the case.
"Out of all that stuff, I kept saying ... 'Where's the beef?'" he said of the case against his client. "It wasn't there."
Sands was arrested within days of the shooting, but it took authorities another four months to charge Burgess and Askins in Wallace's death.
At a preliminary hearing, authorities noted information from a confidential informant and from Joy Martinez, the mother of one of Sands' children, as evidence against the two teens.
During opening statements in Sands' trial last month - the case abruptly ended in a mistrial after two days - Campbell said he expected Martinez to testify about the men's alleged roles. Burgess, the prosecutor said then, was with Askins and Sands when they went to pick up Martinez from work about an hour after the shooting and returned to Burgess' Yellow Rose Court house to dispose of clothing.
The prosecutor also said Martinez was expected to testify that she saw Burgess retrieve a gun from his house the next day, Campbell said during his opening statement.
It was unclear yesterday what other information investigators had amassed to connect Burgess to the crime.
Also unclear was when Sands will return to court. His lawyer, Joseph Murtha, said yesterday that he is still planning to argue with the court that double jeopardy, the constitutional provision that bars trying a defendant twice for the same crime, bars retrial of his client. He said he is preparing a dismissal motion. Askins is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 24.