HASH PURSUING APPEAL
Man convicted of killing Thelma Scroggins takes appeal to Virginia Supreme Court after judge refuses to overturn verdict.
BY DONNIE JOHNSTON
Date published: 7/15/2008
BY DONNIE JOHNSTON
Convicted murderer Michael Hash is taking his request for a new trial to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Richmond attorney David B. Hargett filed the appeal July 7, three weeks after retiring Culpeper County Circuit Judge John Cullen denied a motion to set aside Hash's conviction and life sentence in the July 1996 slaying of 74-year-old Thelma Scroggins of Lignum.
The central issue in the appeal is the testimony of convicted felon Paul Carter who, according to Hargett, had a 15-year sentence in federal prison drastically reduced after testifying against Hash in his February 2001 capital murder trial.
Carter told the jury that convicted Hash that while the two men were locked in the same cell for several days, the defendant admitted to participating in Scroggins' slaying.
Hargett contended that Carter was a "professional snitch" and suggested that the Culpeper County Sheriff's Office had transferred Hash from the Culpeper jail to one in Charlottesville so the informant could obtain evidence.
Hash's attorney also contended that when Hash was arrested in 2000, then-Sheriff Lee Hart and his investigators ignored other suspects that had come to light during the initial 1996 investigation under the previous sheriff, Roger Mitchell.
David Carter, who was the lead investigator in 1996, testified during a hearing last October that investigators had established several suspects in the months after the crime and that some had never been eliminated.
While Judge Cullen agreed that Charlottesville attorney Richard Davis, who defended Hash in 2001, had erred "in failing to investigate [Paul] Carter's federal file," he wrote in an April opinion that "the evidence does not show a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different."
Cullen added that he did not believe that Commonwealth's Attorney Gary Close had suppressed evidence about other possible suspects.
"The court cannot conclude that considered collectively such material would have undermined essential aspects of the commonwealth's case," Cullen wrote.
Cullen's denial was not officially entered into the record until June 16.
Hash, who was 15 at the time of Scroggins' murder, was one of three youths accused of killing the elderly woman in her home and stealing her truck.
A jury acquitted Jason Kloby, the eldest of the three alleged participants. But another jury convicted Hash several months later.
Eric Weakley, the third suspect, pleaded guilty and was given a reduced sentence for turning state's evidence. He is now a free man.
Only Hash, who is serving his sentence at Wallens Ridge state correctional facility just outside Big Stone Gap, remains imprisoned for the crime.
Cullen, in one of his final actions as judge, appointed Hargett to represent Hash in his Supreme Court appeal.
Donnie Johnston:
Email: djohnston@freelancestar.com
Read more stories about Culpeper
Date published: 7/15/2008
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