A Virginia jury has spared the life of Iraq war vet­er­an Ronald Hamilton (pic­tured, right, with his father) in the 2016 killings of his wife and a rook­ie police offi­cer. The jury split 6 – 6 on whether to impose the death penal­ty for Hamilton’s mur­der of his wife, Crystal Hamilton, but unan­i­mous­ly agreed to impose a life sen­tence for the death of Officer Ashley Guindon, who was killed while she respond­ed to Crystal Hamilton’s 911 call. Under Virginia law, the court must impose a life sen­tence if any of the jurors vote for life. At the sen­tenc­ing phase of the tri­al, Hamilton’s lawyers pre­sent­ed evi­dence of his pos­si­ble post­trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der from two tours of duty in Iraq, empha­sized his devel­op­ment into a mod­el sol­dier who, as an Army sergeant, saved a col­league’s life while they were under mor­tar fire, and pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from his father, Ronald W. Hamilton, and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers. During his tes­ti­mo­ny, the elder Ronald Hamilton — a retired police offi­cer whose career includ­ed ser­vice at the White House and who served as the sec­ond-in-com­mand of the Charleston, South Carolina police force — expressed his sym­pa­thy to the fam­i­ly of Officer Guindon and to the two oth­er offi­cers who were wound­ed. ​“I see the prosecutor’s side and defense side, and I can sit on either side. I feel the pain. I under­stand the duty,” Hamilton tes­ti­fied. ​“If any­one in this court­room had their rel­a­tive sit­ting where my son was, they’d be ask­ing for mer­cy,” he said. As is often the case in cap­i­tal tri­als of war vet­er­ans, the pros­e­cu­tion had attempt­ed to con­vert Hamilton’s mil­i­tary ser­vice into an aggra­vat­ing fac­tor, repeat­ed­ly refer­ring to him as ​“depraved” and ​“dan­ger­ous.” Prosecutor Richard Conway told the jury that sol­diers ​“deserve respect and deserve pro­tec­tion, but they don’t get a pass for cap­i­tal mur­der,” while his co-coun­sel, Matthew Lowery urged the jury to “[p]ut him in the grave because that’s what he deserves.”

No Virginia jury has imposed a death sen­tence since 2011 and Hamilton had offered to plead guilty in exchange for a sen­tence of life with­out parole. However, Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert – known for his fre­quent use of the death penal­ty – reject­ed the offer. The coun­ty is respon­si­ble for more exe­cu­tions since 1976 than any oth­er coun­ty in the Commonwealth and is among the 2% of coun­ties that account for a major­i­ty of all exe­cu­tions in the United States in that period.

(Ian Shapira, Va. jury dead­locks on death sen­tence for man who killed wife and police offi­cer, The Washington Post, October 25, 2018; Emily Sides, Jury dead­locked on death penal­ty, Hamilton sen­tenced to life in dou­ble mur­der, InsideNoVA, October 25, 2018; Matthew Barakat, Jury spares life of sol­dier con­vict­ed of killing wife, rook­ie police offi­cer, Associated Press, October 25, 2018; Matthew Barakat, Life-or-death deci­sion faces jury in cop killer case, Associated Press, October 23, 2018; Ian Shapira, For Va. man who killed his wife and a police offi­cer, a push for death and plea for mer­cy, The Washington Post, October 1, 2018; Ian Shapira, Retired police com­man­der tries to save his son — a cop killer — from exe­cu­tion, The Washington Post, October 17, 2018.) See Sentencing.

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