Slain Bibb deputy’s case still going five years later

Joseph Whitehead’s family will be preparing several of his favorite dishes Wednesday.

His sister’s jerk chicken. His mom’s homemade Parker House rolls. Nana’s banana pudding. New York style pizza, paella and bean pies.

The feast in New Jersey will be one way the family remembers Whitehead. They’ll have plenty of stories about him to share, and he’ll be there in old family videos.

Wednesday will mark five years since the 36-year-old Bibb County deputy was fatally shot while helping serve a “no-knock” warrant at a house off Montpelier Avenue in Macon. And although the men charged with Whitehead’s death were arrested within hours of the raid, their case still has not gone to trial.

Antron Fair, 26, and Damon Jolly, 25, have been in the Bibb County jail since then. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

The case against Fair and Jolly has moved more slowly through the judicial system than other murder cases, in part because it’s a capital case. But there have also been a series of uncommon legal issues that have contributed to the pace of the case, said Greg Winters, district attorney for the Macon Judicial Circuit.

While the case was re-indicted in 2008, a few months before Jolly’s trial was scheduled to begin, new drug and firearms charges didn’t cause lawyers to start over completely. The new indictment did delay the trial by a few months, Winters said.

Two other men -- 26-year-old Thomas Porter and 33-year-old Hassan Shirell Harclerode -- are also charged with murder, drug and firearms charges, but the prosecution isn’t seeking the death penalty against them.

No trial date has been set for any of the four men.

Harclerode and Porter have been convicted of federal charges and are being held in federal prisons.

Like members of Whitehead’s family, deputies and other former co-workers will gather Wednesday for a memorial ceremony at the Bibb County Law Enforcement Complex.

“He will not be forgotten,” Sheriff Jerry Modena said.

Special issues

Members of Whitehead’s family are understandably concerned that the case hasn’t gone to trial, prosecutor Kim Schwartz said.

But “they want this done right,” she said.

Lisa Whitehead said her brother was an exemplary citizen who touched the lives of people he dealt with.

“We are in prayer that a trial delay of this length will still result in the right verdict and reinforce the state’s commitment to the law enforcement profession as well as send a message to the surviving family members, friends and co-workers that our officer’s sacrifice is taken seriously,” she said in an e-mailed statement.

The waiting also is hard for Fair, said Brian Steel, one of his attorneys. He didn’t mean for Whitehead to die, but yet he may face the death penalty.

“He’s living every day knowing he may die, but (a death sentence) would be an unjust verdict because he didn’t know (Whitehead) was an officer,” Steel said. “He thought he was shooting in self-defense.”

The bullet from Fair’s gun didn’t kill Whitehead. He lives every day remorseful that there was a loss of life, Steel said.

Although Steel said in November that he was considering appealing certain parts of the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said Thursday that he’s decided against taking the case to Washington before trial.

Since Fair and Jolly were first indicted on murder charges in April 2006, the case has gone to the Georgia Supreme Court twice, and it’s likely that the high court will rule on the case for a third time before the men go to trial, Winters said.

The court already has ruled that Fair and Jolly can’t claim immunity from prosecution on the basis that they were simply protecting their home when they fired shots at deputies during the raid on March 23, 2006.

Justices have also ruled that when considering whether Fair and Jolly are eligible for the death penalty, it doesn’t matter whether the men knew they were shooting at a law enforcement officer, Winters said.

In late 2010, the high court ordered that another hearing be held to settle a third legal issue in the cases: It must be determined whether a conflict of interest exists in attorneys from the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender serving on defense teams representing both men. As of Friday, the hearing hadn’t been scheduled.

After a Bibb County judge determines whether there’s a conflict of interest, the case will probably return to the state Supreme Court for a third review, Schwartz said.

It can often take several months for the high court to review a case. At the earliest, Winters estimates that the cases could go to trial in 2012.

It’s not unusual for it to take five years to get a death penalty case to trial, said Stan Gunter, deputy executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia.

“There’s some that last longer,” he said.

In fact, the case against Fair and Jolly isn’t the oldest death penalty case on the Bibb County Superior Court docket.

Jomekia Pope, now 34, was charged with murder Oct. 3, 2005, in the death of his girlfriend, 26-year-old Latosha Taylor. Pope is accused of dousing Taylor with gasoline and setting her on fire Aug. 7, 2005.

Winters said he hopes a trial date for Pope will be set at an April hearing.

‘That’s our job’

When Whitehead was shot, he was wearing a bulletproof vest that stopped a slug from hitting his chest.

He was also wearing a helmet, but it was a shot that hit Whitehead in the face that dealt the fatal blow, Modena said.

Since Whitehead’s death, the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office has revised its policy to require that deputies use bullet-resistant Plexiglas face shields mounted on deputies’ helmets during raids.

Deputies had access to the face shields in 2006, but their use wasn’t mandatory. Whitehead wasn’t wearing one.

“It definitely would have helped,” Modena said.

The deputies were also carrying handheld shields when they served the warrant.

After Whitehead’s death, the sheriff’s office investigated whether deputies had followed proper operational procedures during the raid, and they found that they had, Modena said.

In the past five years, Whitehead’s name has been affixed to several memorials locally, reaching as far as the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington.

A “rubbing” of Whitehead’s name from the national memorial is displayed prominently on a bookshelf behind Modena’s desk.

Whitehead’s mother, 95-year-old grandmother and other family members plan to visit the memorial Saturday, Lisa Whitehead said.

Joseph Whitehead is very much on the minds of sheriff’s office employees.

“Everybody here had an enormous amount of respect for him,” said Deborah Perkovich, Modena’s secretary.

Cindy Gresham, who also works for the sheriff’s office, said she remembers Whitehead’s smile and his eyes from the times he’d come to her office about personnel matters.

“He had the most beautiful eyes,” she said.

Gresham said Whitehead died doing something he had a passion for.

“He wanted to protect youth from the drug element,” she said.

Modena said he hopes to one day name a road after Whitehead with approval of the county commissioners, but he’s waiting on the case to go through the court system first.

“I don’t want to influence” the case, he said.

In the sheriff’s office lobby, a plaque bearing Whitehead’s name is displayed along with plaques for other fallen deputies.

Modena said he walks past the display at some point about every day and thinks of Whitehead.

“I regret losing a fine young man,” he said.

But if a complaint necessitated a similar raid, deputies would still respond. They didn’t stop serving no-knock warrants after Whitehead’s death, the sheriff said.

“That’s our job.”

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.

This story was originally published March 20, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Slain Bibb deputy’s case still going five years later."