Dutton appeals conviction in murder of his estanged wife

By Allen Worrell

News Writer

Robert Allen Dutton has filed an appeal in his first-degree murder conviction in the Jan. 3, 2007 murder of his estranged wife, Sandra Lambert Dutton, in her home in Ivanhoe.

Dutton, 57, was convicted in a Carroll County Circuit Court on Dec. 4, 2007 of first-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and statutory burglary with the intent to commit murder. He was sentenced to two life terms in prison plus an additional three years.

Sandra Lambert Dutton, 41, was murdered at her home on 47 Jasper Lane in Ivanhoe on the evening of Jan. 3, 2007. She had been shot three times with a  shotgun, two of which were described as fatal shots to the head and back. She had taken out a protective order against Robert Dutton three months earlier, on Sept. 16, 2006, giving her sole possession of the property and ordering Robert Dutton to have no contact with her.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Gregory G. Goad case was built on three main factors. The first was a confession Robert Dutton made to Carroll County Investigators Fred Bobbitt and Venton Smith on Jan. 4 in which Dutton is attributed to saying “I shot her,” and “I killed her,” and “Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I don’t know why I done this. I wish you could take that gun and just kill me now because I can’t live with what I have done.”

Goad’s case was also built around analysis of a mixture of Robert Dutton’s and Sandra Dutton’s DNA on a shotgun shell found at the crime scene, and a lab examination matching an unfired shotgun shell found in Robert Dutton’s pickup truck the following day that was the same size shot and had the same machine marks as fired shotgun shells found at the crime scene.

Throughout the two-day trial, Robert Dutton repeatedly denied making statements to investigators Bobbitt and Smith about killing his wife, even calling the investigators liars on several occasions.

Robert Dutton’s defense attorney Jonathon Venzie has asked the Virginia Court of Appeals to consider three questions in the appeal. Venzie has asked the appeals court to consider (1) if trial judge Brett Geisler made an error in failing to suppress the verbal statements Robert Dutton made to investigators, (2) if the trial judge committed an error in failing to suppress forensic DNA evidence on the spent shotgun shell casing, and (3) if the trial judge committed an error in failing to suppress expert forensic tool mark evidence showing that a spent shotgun shell casing recovered at the crime scene was made on the same machine as an unfired shotgun shell recovered from Robert Dutton’s truck.

Venzie’s appeal claims that after Robert Dutton was read his Miranda rights, no video or audio recording was made of the interview, that Dutton refused to sign the statements attributed to him, and that Dutton testified that investigators prepared the statement on how investigators believed the murder happened at Sandra Dutton’s home.

“The dispute is over what, if anything, was said by the defendant,” Venzie wrote. “The need for accuracy compels an audio or video recording of that interview prior to its admission as evidence against the defendant.”

As for the DNA analysis, Venzie argues in the appeal that Robert Dutton lived in the home where Sandra Dutton was killed until several months prior to her death.

“The discovery of (the) defendant’s DNA in a home he occupied for seven to eight years proves only that he lived there,” Venzie wrote. “Such evidence should be excluded on the ground that it lacks relevancy.”

The introduction of the DNA analysis was not harmless, Venzie continued.

“In this case the jury had the hotly contested statement of the defendant to the police and little else,” Venzie wrote. “There is no fair assurance that the jury was not substantially swayed by the meaningless DNA evidence and it is impossible to conclude that substantial rights were not affected.”

As for the third question of the similar markings and the spent shotgun shell casings at the crime scene and the unfired shells found in Dutton’s pickup truck, Venzie said the Commonwealth’s expert witness testified that any particular bunter will produce approximately five million shells before being replaced, and that no evidence existed as to the location of the remaining shells produced on that particular bunter. Venzie noted that the expert also couldn’t testify to what percentage of shells in Carroll County, or any other region, had been produced on the same bunter as the three tested shells.

“The evidence presented only proved that a particular machine made a shell at the crime scene and a shell in the possession of the defendant,” Venzie wrote. “No evidence of percentage of similarity or frequency was established. With the incomplete evidence presented, such testimony should be excluded on the ground it lacks relevancy.”

Commonwealth’s Attorney Gergory G. Goad wrote several reasons the appeal should be denied.

As far as Dutton’s attributed statements, Goad wrote the appeal court must view the evidence presented at the trial in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party in the Circuit Court case, and accord the Commonwealth the benefit of all inferences fairly deductible from that evidence.

“This court must disregard the evidence of the accused that conflicts with that of the Commonwealth, and regard as true all the credible evidence favorable to the Commonwealth,” Goad wrote, using the case of Norman vs. Commonwealth as a precedent.

About the DNA analysis, Goad also pointed to a precedent set in Virginia courts.

“Every fact, however remote or insignificant, that tends to establish the probability or improbability of a fact in issue, is admissible,” Goad wrote. “The fact that (the) defendant’s DNA was on the spent shell is very relevant and was properly admitted at trial, especially when one considers the defendant was forced to leave the home pursuant to the Protective Order issued Sept. 16, 2006.”

Goad also wrote that similar marks on the spent and unspent shotgun shells were also relevant.

“The fact that both shells were produced from the same bunter, the pellets recovered from the body and the pellets in the unspent shell were both Number 6 shot and both hulls were black in color is very relevant and was properly admitted at the trial.