The attorney for Richard Dangleben Jr., the St. Thomas man accused in the 2023 shooting death of VIPD Detective Delberth Phipps Jr., has asked the V.I. District Court to dismiss the murder charges against his client because it lacks jurisdiction over the alleged crimes.
Federal Public Defender Matthew Campbell filed the motion Thursday, a day after filing a 37-page motion for a change of venue due to intense publicity surrounding the case, as well as 12 other motions to dismiss or sever the federal charges against Dangleben.
If those federal counts are dismissed, as Campbell argues they must be, the District Court no longer has jurisdiction over the remaining counts charged as local offenses under the Virgin Islands Code, according to Friday’s motion. Those include first-degree murder; first-degree assault (two counts); third-degree assault (two counts); attempted first-degree murder; and wearing body armor during the commission of a crime.
The federal charges include use of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death; two counts of discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence; possession of firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime; possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number; and receipt of a firearm while under indictment for a crime punishable by more than one-year imprisonment.
Separately, Dangleben also faces murder and other charges in V.I. Superior Court, for the February 2023 shooting death of Keith Jennings, hence the “receipt of a firearm while under indictment” charge in the Phipps case. Both incidents occurred in the Hospital Ground area of St. Thomas.
Dangleben has pleaded not guilty in both cases and is currently scheduled to stand trial in the Jennings case on March 25. A trial date has not been set in the Phipps case, according to publicly available records on the District Court docket.
In the motions filed Wednesday, Campbell called for the court to dismiss all the federal gun charges because they are either unconstitutional, unfairly prejudice the case, are not of a similar character as the other alleged crimes, or fail to state an offense under the United States Code because the underlying crime of violence they are based on is charged under the V.I. Code.
That would leave only the local counts for the District Court to decide, and that is beyond its jurisdiction when they are not part of a case with related federal charges, according to Friday’s motion.
“That is not to say that local charges cannot be brought in the District Court of the Virgin Islands — they can, under limited circumstances. The 1984 amendments to the Revised Organic Act ensure ‘that the District Court would retain concurrent jurisdiction over charges alleging local crimes that are related to federal crimes,’” the motion states, citing United States v. Gillette.
However, that jurisdiction does not apply in this case, it says. “As set forth in [48 U.S.C. § 1612(c)], this Court can exercise concurrent jurisdiction over local criminal offenses if the local offenses (a) are of the same or similar character as charged federal offenses, or (b) if they are based on the same transaction or are part of a common scheme or plan with charged federal offenses,” it says.
Since Dangleben has moved to dismiss federal Counts 1, 2 and 3 for failure to state an offense, and Counts 5 and 6 as unconstitutional, “they cannot serve as providing a basis for this Court’s concurrent jurisdiction over local offenses pursuant to 48 U.S.C. §1612(c),” the motion states.
Once those counts are dismissed, the only remaining federal count is Count 4 — possession of firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime — which Dangleben has moved to sever from the remaining counts under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure because it “is not of similar character as the local offenses, nor is it part of a common scheme or plan or part of the same transactions,” the motion states.
“No federal charges in this case satisfy the requirements of 48 U.S.C. §1612(c) so as to allow the exercise of concurrent jurisdiction over local offenses arising under the Virgin Islands Code,” and therefore the local offenses must be dismissed, according to the motion.
