He chose to be own attorney; maybe not so wise

PORTSMOUTH

Shawn M. Daniels fired his attorney and then refused to come into the courtroom the day of his trial.

He wound up being tried by a jury - a rarity in drug cases. That put Daniels' fate in the hands of Portsmouth residents concerned about drugs in their community.

As drug dealers go, Daniels was no kingpin.

The night he was arrested, police recovered 3.2 grams of heroin, 2.6 grams of marijuana, less than one gram of cocaine and a knife.

Police have had bigger busts. Judges and prosecutors have seen higher-profile cases.

But to many Portsmouth residents, Daniels represents the thing they fear will come to their neighborhood - or the problem that is already there.

If he had been convicted by a judge, he might have ended up with several years in prison.

The jurors' recommendation is 40 years.

"I wanted this guy off the streets," said Daniel Scott, a shipyard employee who served on the jury.

"People are fed up with drugs and they are fed up with people dealing drugs."

At least two people on the jury panel were from Cradock, a neighborhood that has seen crime go down this year because of increased law enforcement efforts and an active neighborhood watch. Another was a resident of Cavalier Manor, the neighborhood Daniels had lived in and where he was arrested.

Jurors looked at Daniels' record and saw he had been given breaks before.

Now 30, Daniels has a record that includes a conviction for possession with intent to distribute heroin, as well as possession of a gun with drugs in 1997 in Richmond. He got five years, all of it suspended, according to court records.

Jurors saw Daniels as a threat to the community, said Matthew Pack, a retired military man.

"The thing that got us is he's a repeat offender," he said.

"Also in the past, he was armed," Pack said. "This time it was a knife."

Virginia is one of only four states that allow jurors a say in sentencing, said Richard Kern, director of the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission.

Supporters say it helps judges take the public's pulse on what punishments should be.

Jurors often come back with higher sentences than judges do. One reason is they do not have the access to the state sentencing guidelines that judges do, Kern said.

The guidelines reflect a range, including a midpoint, that defendants in similar cases have been sentenced to throughout the state.

Jurors also would not have the daily courtroom experience, Kern said. "Most citizens only serve on a jury once in their whole life," he said.

They do not "deal with the whole continuum of cases - murderers, rapists, robbers, kidnappers," Kern said.

"They are looking at this in a vacuum."

They also are looking at it from the eyes of the community.

Daniels had previously told a judge he wanted a jury. On May 27, the day of his trial, he refused to say one way or the other. In the end, the prosecutor made the decision.

Why Daniels raised the prospect of a jury is one of many mysteries about his thinking.

From the beginning, he was a man who did little to help himself.

The night he was stopped with drugs in his car, he was driving with tags that belonged on another vehicle. The officer ticketed Daniels for the tags and then asked if he would consent to a search.

"Sure. I don't see why not," Daniels answered, according to a police summary in court records.

At one hearing leading up to his trial, a judge ordered a mental evaluation. Daniels was found competent to stand trial.

Daniels had agreed to talk for this story at Hampton Roads Regional Jail, where he is an inmate, then refused on the morning of the interview.

The only clues to what Daniels might have been thinking are in the numerous papers he filed with the court, hand written, and sometimes signed, "Shawn X."

Those were sprinkled with disjointed legal terminology and ideas that may have been inspired by an anti-government Web site.

In one, he wrote, "I Shawn Daniels natural man... recieved several notices to appear in this Inferior Court (Circuit Court) not of my own free will.... The jurisdiction of this court is for subjects only. I'm nobodies subject."

In another, he wrote:

"The State or Commonwealth is another soul-less abstraction, an artificial person. Only natural living things with eyes and a brain are born free and can suffer injury and thus be crime victims."

Daniels finally came into the courtroom after all the evidence had been presented. A defense attorney who had been assigned as a legal adviser had done what he could in Daniels' absence.

It took the jury about 18 minutes to convict Daniels, said Eric Livingston, the prosecutor. The jury took longer to come back with a recommended sentence.

It included 30 years for possession with intent to distribute heroin, 10 years for possession of cocaine, and 30 days in jail and a $500 fine for possession of marijuana.

A judge cannot give a defendant a longer sentence than a jury recommends but can lower it or suspend some of the prison time. Most of the time, judges follow the jury's decision.

Daniels will be sentenced on July 24 by Circuit Judge Johnny E. Morrison.

Janie Bryant, (757) 446-2453, janie.bryant@pilotonline.com