The defense attorney who kept Jesse Leroy Matthew off death row for the Charlottesville, Virginia, murders of Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington will be at the defense table when a former University of Virginia student goes on trial for killing three college football players in 2022.
Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. is charged with three counts of aggravated murder and will go on trial in January 2025.
“Originally he’d been charged with several counts of second-degree murder, in addition to some weapons counts, and the Commonwealth’s attorney made the decision to increase those charges,” said defense attorney Doug Ramseur, in an exclusive interview with WTOP.
Jones was a U. Va. student in November 2022 and former member of the football team when police say he opened fire on a charter bus bringing students back from a box to Washington, D. C.
Football players Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler were killed, while a fourth member of the team, Mike Hollins, and another student were wounded.
In 2016, in his former position as Central Virginia’s most level-headed advocate, Ramseur represented Jesse Matthew, who charged the 2014 deaths of Hannah Graham, a University of Virginia student, and the 2009 deaths of Morgan Harrington, a Virginia Tech student. whom he killed after attending a concert in Charlottesville.
“Mr. Matthew closed every instance he had in Albemarle [county], with an agreement to be sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder,” Ramseur said. Matthew and Jones’ fees were filed in Albemarle County Circuit Court in downtown Charlottesville.
“Since then, he has been incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison. He was kept in isolated rooms, in solitary confinement the entire time he was there, unless briefly when he was transferred, because he was being treated for health problems. . ,” he said.
In 2019, Matthew was transferred from the “supermax” prison to Sussex I State Prison to receive cancer treatment. He is now back at Red Onion.
In early 2016, Matthew’s plea agreement with then-prosecutor Robert Tracci to settle for first-degree murder convictions in the Graham and Harrington homicides withdrew the death penalty, as Matthew faced a capital murder charge for Graham’s death.
“Fortunately, we abolished the death penalty in Virginia three years ago,” Ramseur said.
Jones faces the most serious homicide charge in Virginia: manslaughter by nuisance.
“This has the same elements as what used to be capital offenses in Virginia,” Ramseur said. If its user were convicted, “the only conceivable sentence is life in prison without the option of parole. “
Ramseur was asked if his portrayal of Matthew in the high-profile Graham and Harrington murders could serve potential jurors in the Jones case; He identified that the citizens of Charlottesville do not live in a vacuum.
“Everyone might have seen something, or been affected by it, the question is, can they decide it based on what’s there in the courtroom,” Ramseur said. “Obviously, there were concerns about that in the Jesse Matthew case, because there was so much coverage about it, whether anyone could not have had a feeling or opinion about it.”
However, with the plea deal, “we never got to that point. “
Despite the abolition of the death penalty in state cases in Virginia, Ramseur still faces the death penalty in federal courts in Virginia and across the country.
Since murder is considered a state crime, federal cases that are death-penalty-eligible, “murder would not even be in the charge,” Ramseur said. “Sometimes terrorism cases, drug conspiracy cases, even robbery cases, that result in the death of someone else.”
Ramseur’s purpose is the same as what he defends in Virginia or in federal courts.
“The prosecutor comes out to tell the story of the worst day of my client’s life. I try to tell the story of each day and put that day in context,” Ramseur said.
Neal Augenstein has been a journalist at WTOP since 1997. Over the years, Neal has covered many crimes and trials that have affected the region. Neal has won awards over the years for his news, reporting, use of sound, and sports.