Chief District Judge Robert Molloy has ruled that the death penalty is off the table in the murder case of Richardson Dangleben Jr.
The order issued Monday ends months of wrangling over whether the Justice Department, which filed notice in February 2024 that it would not seek capital punishment, could suddenly reverse that decision more than a year later, after proceedings were well underway.
Molloy foreshadowed his decision in a May opinion denying the DOJ’s motion for a 120-day stay in the case after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a Feb. 5 memorandum reviving the death penalty and lifting the moratorium on federal executions. That followed a Jan. 20 executive order by President Donald Trump to review all decisions to not seek such punishment in eligible cases charged during the Biden Administration.
The judge said then that not only had the deadline long passed for the government to declare it would seek the death penalty, but doing so now would clearly disadvantage Dangleben, who faces first-degree murder, assault and gun charges in the July 4, 2023, shooting death of V.I. Police Detective Delberth Phipps Jr. on St. Thomas.
Dangleben has pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial Oct. 6, likely on St. Croix after both the defense and prosecution indicated in a stipulation filed July 31 that they are in agreement on Public Defender Matthew Campbell’s request for a change of venue due to publicity surrounding the case.
Campbell has strongly opposed the DOJ’s efforts to pursue the death penalty, writing in a brief in March that reversing course more than a year into proceedings had effectively pulled the rug out from under his client “based on a whim.”
Moreover, had he known the government would do so, Dangleben would never have requested a continuance when he was set to go to trial last October and the matter would now be moot, Campbell said.
Molloy also noted in his May opinion that because Dangleben had been proceeding according to the “no-seek” decision, he had been without a learned counsel — an attorney expert in death penalty cases — for more than a year, complicating his trial preparation and his preparation for re-review by the Capital Review Committee.
In June, Campbell filed a motion to strike the government’s notice of intent to seek the death penalty, followed by another in August asking Molloy to decide the matter without oral argument and based on the briefs already filed in the case, given the looming trial date.
Molloy granted the motion Monday in his two-page order, writing in a footnote that “the Court will issue a memorandum opinion outlining its reasons at a later date.”
The judge ordered the government’s notice of intent stricken from the record and said its February 2024 notice that it would “proceed with either a non-capital trial or plea agreement in this matter” would be the controlling document in the case.
“Thus, this case will proceed as a non-death penalty case,” Molloy wrote.
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