A Times Editorial

Relief over Kings' troubling case

Escambia County Circuit Court Judge Frank Bell has finally injected some sanity into the case of Alex and Derek King.

The two brothers, Alex, 13, and Derek, 14, were convicted in September of murdering Terry King, their father, by beating him to death with a baseball bat while he slept and then setting the house on fire to cover their crimes. At their sentencing hearing, Bell refused to impose the decades-long punishments the crimes carried. Instead he set aside the boys' convictions on the grounds that their due process rights were violated. The ruling comes as a great relief to many court-watchers who found this case extremely troubling due to the prosecutor's unprofessional, and some would say unethical, conduct.

Two aspects of this case are of particular concern. First, David Rimmer, an assistant state attorney in Escambia County, decided to charge Alex and Derek as adults. That meant the boys, who were ages 12 and 13 when the crime occurred, were facing life prison terms if convicted of first degree murder. Second, after the boys retracted their initial confessions and pointed an accusing finger at Ricky Chavis, a family friend who is alleged to have had a sexual relationship with Alex, Rimmer prosecuted both the boys and Chavis in separate trials as if each were the perpetrator.

Rimmer couldn't make up his mind as to who was guilty of the murder, so he decided to leave it up to two sets of jurors. Talk about reasonable doubt.

Blame for the bungling of this case falls squarely on Rimmer's shoulders. He is ethically bound to believe in the validity of every case he brings to a jury. Prosecutors simply should not be allowed to try multiple suspects for the same crime using differing theories and facts.

But some of the blame has to be shared by Judge Bell. He presided over both murder trials and knew full well he was directing a train wreck. In fact, he was so concerned that the result might be convictions all around, he opened the sealed jury verdict in the Chavis case before it was read in open court. Because Chavis was found "not guilty," the judge was off the hook. He no longer had to worry about what the jury did in the boys' trial.

Ultimately, Alex and Derek were convicted of second degree murder and arson, crimes that carry sentences of 22 years to life and 30 years respectively. But something was clearly wrong with the process and Bell was well aware of it. He could have stopped the proceedings earlier, before the case was given to the jury.

Bell has ordered the prosecution and the defense to try and mediate a resolution to the matter -- a highly unusual demand in a criminal case. If that cannot be accomplished, and the prosecution loses an appeal of Bell's decision, there is a possibility of a retrial -- though if the first trial is unconstitutional, it is likely any subsequent trials would be as well.

The state had its bite at the apple. It tried Chavis for Terry King's murder. Without the emergence of new evidence, Bell was right to deny the state a second try. If the actual murderer or murderers go free, the fault lies primarily with Rimmer, a prosecutor who couldn't get his facts straight.

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