Wolfe appeal gains ground
By Dusty Smith
Justin Michael Wolfe, 28, told his mom the news he received May 11 was the best Mother’s Day gift he could possibly have given her. The news could be an even bigger gift to him.Wolfe—convicted of ordering the 2001 murder of his drug dealer, Daniel Robert Petrole Jr. and sentenced to death—now may get the chance to introduce new evidence in his case, including the jailhouse confession of the triggerman, who wrote in a 2005 affidavit that Wolfe had nothing to do with the murder.
A three-judge panel of 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered a lower federal court to reconsider whether it excluded from consideration evidence of Wolfe’s actual innocence. Now, in a multi-step process, the lower court must determine whether such evidence exists and if it could have impacted Wolfe’s sentence or conviction.
The decision could lead to a new trial for Wolfe, who has proclaimed his innocence from the beginning.
“We’re pleased with the court’s opinion and we look forward to the opportunity to present the full case to the full district court,” said Jim Griffin, a member of Wolfe’s defense team. Attorneys with the firm King & Spalding have taken the case on a pro bono basis along with the Charlottesville-based Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center.
Wolfe’s mother, Terri Steinberg, said she’s elated. Since his conviction, she has become an anti-death penalty activist working with the Journey of Hope. She was in Germany speaking on behalf of the group when the decision from the 4th Circuit was announced.
“I am thrilled,” she said via e-mail, explaining that she physical shook upon hearing the news. “At first, I cried. Maybe now the evidence of innocence can actually be recognized and we can finally bring him home. This is a great Mother's day gift. Justin is thrilled. He asked, ‘How did I do for your Mother's Day gift?’”
Times Community Newspapers featured a series of stories following Wolfe’s trial questioning the outcome based on information not considered at trial as well as independent analysis of the evidence.
A Prince William County jury convicted Wolfe in 2002 after hearing from a series of witnesses, only one of whom tied Wolfe to the murder. That witness, triggerman Owen Merton Barber IV, testified that Wolfe ordered the murder to escape a drug debt.
However, in a 13-page December 2005 affidavit in which Barber signed every page, he claims investigators first gave him the idea to blame Wolfe and that he was forced to testify against Wolfe or face the death penalty himself. The affidavit answers many questions raised by the Times’ series. In fact, Barber says in the affidavit that he did not want Wolfe knowing of his plans to follow Petrole that night, in which he followed Petrole for more than an hour before gunning the young drug dealer down in front of his Braemar townhouse.
About four months later Barber sent a short hand-written message to Wolfe’s defense team saying that his trial testimony was the truth, not the affidavit.