The Virginian Pilot
NORFOLK, VA. — A judge imposed the death penalty Monday on Thomas A. Porter, the man convicted of killing city police Officer Stanley C. Reaves. Circuit Judge Chuck Griffith announced the sentence in a courtroom crowded with friends, family and colleagues of the fallen officer.
Reaves was responding to a complaint on Oct. 28, 2005, in Park Place when he approached Porter, who shot him in the head. It happened in broad daylight in front of several witnesses.
Porter was convicted of capital murder in March in Arlington, where the trial was moved because of publicity. Jurors there recommended the death sentence.
Monday’s hearing was held in a courtroom much larger than Griffith’s usual space on the second floor of the courthouse.
By the time the hearing began, police officers in uniforms and suits had filled the nine benches on the right of the room, and some stood along the walls in the back. Reaves’ widow, Treva, sat near the front.
On the other side of the aisle, a few people waited in support of Porter, including Juanice Hendricks, who was Porter’s girlfriend at the time of the shooting. Porter drove her Jeep Cherokee into Park Place that day.
One of Porter’s lawyers, Capital Defender Joseph A. Migliozzi Jr. , again asked the judge to recuse himself from the case. He also asked Griffith to declare the death penalty unconstitutional and to set aside the jury’s recommendation of death and impose a life prison sentence instead. Griffith denied the requests.
Neither Migliozzi nor Commonwealth’s Attorney Jack Doyle presented evidence.
Porter spoke at length before Griffith imposed the sentence. He said he had been ill-treated at the jail while awaiting trial because of the charge he faced. He said he was not the monster prosecutors made him out to be.
And he addressed Reaves’ family.
“I can pretty much understand what you’re going through,” he said, “because I go through it every day myself.”
He asked Griffith not to impose the death penalty. A life for a life would not be fair, Porter said, as it would not bring Reaves back.
Griffith also spoke at length. He summarized some of the evidence from the trial and said that although Porter and Reaves came from similar backgrounds, both raised by a single mother, they chose drastically divergent paths.
“One chose being a law enforcement officer,” Griffith said. “You chose - from your criminal history - being predatory.”
Treva Reaves declined to speak after the hearing, but she later gave a written statement. She thanked many people for their love and support and said her family, the city and the Police Department had suffered a huge loss.
“I hope that those of you that were fortunate enough to have met Stanley will never forget him,” she wrote. “We never will.”
Griffith set Porter’s execution for Feb. 4, but that date likely will be delayed by appeals.
As he was led out of the courtroom, Porter looked at his family and friends and let out a stream of air through his teeth.
“Great God almighty,” he said, smiling and shaking his head.
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