Plouff trial starts today

Three years ago, Sgt. Howard Plouff was mortally wounded in the early morning hours of Feb. 23, 2007, while trying to break up a fight at a nightclub on Jones­town Road.

Today, a week after the anniversary of his death, the man accused of killing Plouff -- Keith Antoine Carter -- will stand trial.

Plouff's widow, Joyce, will be in the courtroom during the trial, listening to how her husband died. She deferred comment last week, saying she did not want to do anything that might affect the trial.

Ginger Amos knows what Joyce Plouff will be feeling.

On Feb. 27, 1995, her son, Winston-Salem police officer Stephen Levi Amos II, was shot to death at an apartment complex on Brownsboro Road. George Franklin Page, who was convicted in Amos' death, was firing down from his apartment using a bolt-action rifle. Amos, who went to the scene, was shot in the chest as he was getting out of his car.

Ginger Amos remembers sitting through Page's trial and hearing the gory details of her son's death. A Forsyth County jury convicted Page, who was sentenced to death.

In 2004, federal and state judges stayed the execution over questions about Page's mental health and the procedure required if executioners couldn't find a usable vein. Page's attorneys argued the procedure would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Page died in December 2008 of a chronic heart condition and other health problems.

Ginger Amos said recently that the trial was difficult.

"It was really trying for our family, and emotional," she said. "We were very fortunate that we had so much family support and support from our church and community to go through this."

Forsyth District Attorney Jim O'Neill declined to comment about the Carter trial and case, as did Carter's attorney, David Freedman.

Carter, who was a student at Winston-Salem State University at the time of the shooting, has remained in the Forsyth County Jail with no bond allowed.

He is charged with first-degree murder and, if convicted, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Criminal case

Plouff, who had been with the Winston-Salem Police Department for more than 17 years, was eating at the Waffle House on Jonestown Road when he got a call about a fight at the Red Rooster nightclub a couple of blocks away.

The fighting began inside the club when partygoers began flashing gang signs, attorneys for the Red Rooster said in a hearing in 2007 before an administrative-law judge. The nightclub was trying to keep its alcohol permits after city officials attempted to have the club shut down.

The fight spilled out into the parking lot. Joseph Hensley, a bouncer, fired a gun in an attempt to dispel the crowd, but by some accounts, the fighting instead got worse.

Plouff, who by then had arrived in the lot, was shot in the neck while walking among the crowd. He later died at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Hensley pleaded guilty last May to being a felon in possession of a firearm and discharging a firearm within city limits. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and three years of probation.

Carter was charged with murder four days after the shooting. His mother, Kimberly Carter, could not be reached for comment, but she said last year that her son's side of what happened that night hasn't been heard.

Freedman has filed motions to suppress statements that Carter made to police on Feb. 27, 2007. According to the motions, police called Carter and told him that officers would escort him to the police department to answer questions about the shooting.

Freedman argues in the motions that Carter was never advised of his Miranda rights, and that Carter was given the impression by police that he could not leave. Freedman also filed motions to keep out evidence that police seized from Carter's apartment. That evidence included a 9 mm gun, shell casings, a deformed 9 mm projectile and 35 9 mm rounds.

Prosecutors decided last year not to pursue the death penalty against Carter.

Assistant District Attorney David Hall, the lead prosecutor on the case, said last year that the death penalty would be difficult to pursue based on what the investigation had found. He declined to discuss the evidence.

Typically, pursing the death penalty requires that prosecutors be able to prove at least one of 11 aggravating factors, such as the killing being "especially heinous, atrocious and cruel."

Three years later

Although it was extremely popular from the time it opened in 2005 until the shooting, the Red Rooster closed barely a year later, after the city tried and failed to get it shut down. In 2008, the club's owner, Mark Jacobs, reached agreement with the city that he would not operate or be a part of managing any venue with an ABC permit in Forsyth County for two years.

Besides the effort to have the Red Rooster closed, city officials tried and failed to pass an ordinance that would give police more power over nightclubs.

Joyce Plouff has filed a wrongful-death civil lawsuit against Jacobs, Carter, Hensley and others. That case is still pending.

Jacobs said last week that he has moved on. He now lives in Lake Norman and books bands for nightclubs,

"There was only one person who shot and killed Plouff and that is the man who is on trial," he said.

Ginger Amos said she plans to offer her support to Joyce Plouff because she had help getting through the trial of her son's killer.

"You are a family," she said. "You are there to support each other."

mhewlett@wsjournal.com


727-7326