August 5 , 2005

JURY TRIAL SOUGHT IN CHURCH SHOOTING

Rutland Herald
by Daniel Barlow Southern Vermont Bureau

BRATTLEBORO — The family of a Bellows Falls man fatally shot in a church by police four years ago asked a New York City court Thursday to send their civil case to a jury trial.

Lawyers for the family of Robert Woodward asked a panel of three U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals judges to overrule a 2004 decision by a Brattleboro judge, who dismissed their wrongful death civil lawsuit.

Woodward, 37, was shot and killed by two Brattleboro Police officers Dec. 2, 2001, after he entered a West Brattleboro church with a knife and threatened to commit suicide.

"There's substantial evidence in the record suggesting no threat, no charge, no advance" on the officers by Woodward, the judges were told Thursday by attorney Joel Faxon, who is representing Woodward's mother and sister.

But attorneys representing the town of Brattleboro and the two officers argued that Woodward had moved toward the officers with the knife in a threatening manner. Lawyer William Ellis said Woodward was within 5 feet of one of the officers and 7 feet from one of the parishioners.

"We can't be sitting here in the comfy confines of this courtroom second-guessing what happened that day," Ellis told the judges. "It was tense. It was quick."

Police said Woodward had interrupted morning services at All Soul's Unitarian Church in West Brattleboro in December 2001 by passing out cryptic messages written on the backs of checks and threatening suicide. He told parishioners he sought "sanctuary" from federal officials he claimed were pursuing him.

A report by Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell cleared the two officers — Terrance Parker and Marshall Holbrook — of any wrongdoing in the shooting. Woodward's mother and sister filed a lawsuit against the town and officers in February 2002.

The lawsuit alleges that Woodward's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the officers shot and killed him. The attorneys for the town have argued that Woodward made a threatening move toward the officers, a claim backed by Sorrell's report.

Thursday's court hearing in New York City was the first in the case since Faxon and attorney Thomas Costello of Brattleboro filed an appeal in fall 2004.

The three judges — Sonia Sotomayor, Rosemary Pooler and Edward Korman — will now decide if the appeal goes forward or if they support the decision by District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha in favor of the town.

Faxon said many of the facts in the case are still disputed and a jury trial is required to find the truth. He told the judges that witnesses in the church told police immediately after the shooting they did not see Woodward lunge at the officers.

Korman suggested in court Thursday that Murtha gave less credit to those witnesses because they also said they were not watching Woodward or did not have clear sight of the shooting.

The testimony from the officers "seems to me to be the beginning and the end of the case," Korman said.

About 15 members of Woodward's family and friends, including members of a Massachusetts-based group called Justice for Woody, attended Thursday's hearing.

Stephen Monroe Tomczak of Wallingford, Conn., a college friend of Woodward's, said he was skeptical of the appeal but walked away from Thursday's hearing "cautiously optimistic."

"Based on the kinds of questions the judges asked, I'm more optimistic that we might get a positive result," he said.

Ellis and Faxon said it may be three to five months before the judges issue a written decision on the case.

Woodward's family could appeal again to the U.S. Supreme Court if the judges support Murtha's original decision, Faxon said.

"The family wants a jury trial," Faxon said. "They have wanted one since the beginning in order to get all the facts out there."