In a precedential opinion, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a V.I. District Court order striking the death penalty in the murder case of Richardson Dangleben Jr., who is accused in the 2023 shooting death of V.I. Police Detective Delberth Phipps Jr.
The 28-page opinion, handed down Monday and authored by Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman, found that the issue was not, “as the Government frames it, ‘whether to seek the death penalty’ falls within the purview of the Executive Branch; it does. … Instead, the issue is whether courts have the right to manage their cases; they do.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office was correct that it retains “discretion to evaluate the appropriate charges based on known facts,” even in a jurisdiction that has abolished the death penalty, Hardiman wrote, but “it is equally true that the Government cannot usurp the Court’s case-management function. On the facts of this case, the District Court did not abuse its discretion when it struck the Government’s very belated (and contradictory) notice to seek the death penalty.”
A grand jury returned a 13-count indictment against Dangleben, 54, in October 2023, charging him with first-degree murder and other violations of federal and territorial laws in connection with the shooting death of Phipps, 42, on July 4 that year, and the assault of another officer who also responded to the 911 call concerning a man with a gun in Hospital Ground on St. Thomas. He has pleaded not guilty.
While the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in February 2024 that it would not seek the death penalty, it reversed course in May 2025 after an executive order from President Donald Trump lifting former President Joe Biden’s moratorium on federal executions. Dangleben’s attorney, federal Public Defender Matthew Campbell, filed a motion opposing the about-face and after briefing by both sides, V.I. District Court Chief Judge Robert Molloy struck the government’s notice from the record last August, ruling that the case would proceed as a noncapital case.
In a memorandum opinion Sept. 15 explaining his decision, Molloy listed a number of concerns regarding the timing of the USA’s death notice so late in the process, including that it was not based on new information that wasn’t previously available to the government; it was filed 459 days after the original “no-seek” notice of Feb. 7, 2024; 22 months after Dangleben’s initial arrest; 19 months after the first indictment; and less than five months before trial.
“Even if the Government now seeks relief from the deadline, it has waived or forfeited any right it had or may have had to such relief,” he wrote.
Moreover, the “preparation for a death-penalty case is dramatically different in approach and scope from a non-death penalty case. Clearly, the Government’s Death Notice, if allowed to stand, would require Defendant ‘to substantially alter his yearslong preparations for trial,’” Molloy said.
With the trial date just three weeks away, the DOJ appealed Molloy’s order to the Third Circuit the same day he issued his opinion, essentially halting further District Court proceedings. Oral argument was held Dec. 9 before a three-judge panel.
In its opinion Monday, the appellate court largely agreed with Molloy on the death penalty ruling but reversed and remanded his order dismissing Counts 2 and 3 of the superseding indictment — discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence — and Count 1, use of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death, with instructions to reinstate those charges.
Campbell had argued that they failed to state an offense under the United States Code because the predicate offenses upon which the charges are based are local territorial offenses, and Molloy agreed.
“Dangleben argues that even if the plain language of the statute can be read to allow local offenses to serve as predicate offenses under Section 924(c), such an interpretation would lead to the absurd result of Virgin Islands defendants being able to be prosecuted under a version of a federal offense not available in any other federal court,” Molloy wrote in his Sept. 15 opinion. “Consequently, Virgin Islands defendants would be subjected to harsher punishment under a version of Section 924(c) that could not be applied anywhere else in the United States. The Court agrees,” said Molloy.
However, the appellate court found that such offenses can qualify as predicate “crimes of violence” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A), which punishes firearm use during violent crimes prosecuted in a “court of the United States,” because the District Court of the Virgin Islands is legally considered such.
“For starters, territories are not states. Congress has plenary power over the territories, so some differential treatment between the two is to be expected,” according to the opinion. “‘[A]s a United States territory, the U.S. Virgin Islands does not have independent sovereignty but derives such powers as its [G]overnment possesses directly from congressional grant under article IV, section 3 of the federal Constitution.’ Given that backdrop, there is nothing absurd about allowing § 924(c) charges to be premised on Virgin Islands territorial crimes of violence that already may be prosecuted in the District of the Virgin Islands, a federal court,” it said.
“One ‘conceivable justification’ for this result … is that Congress wanted to deter and punish the violent use of firearms in the Virgin Islands by extending the enhanced punishments in § 924(c) and § 924(j) to all offenses over which the District of the Virgin Islands has jurisdiction — territorial and federal,” Hardiman wrote.
Molloy canceled Dangleben’s Oct. 6 trial date after the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed its notice of appeal last September and a new trial date has not been set. Both sides may still seek a review of the appellate court’s decision by filing a petition for a rehearing within 14 days after entry of the judgment.
Dangleben remains in pretrial detention at the Guaynabo Metropolitan Detention Center in Puerto Rico. He also faces first-degree murder charges in V.I. Superior Court in the shooting death of Keith Jennings on Feb. 24, 2023, also in the Hospital Ground area, for which he was free on bail when Phipps was shot and killed. That case was set for trial last October but proceedings were canceled due to the ongoing federal case.
