Carter convicted: Jury verdict spares him of life term

Keith Antoine Carter was convicted yesterday of killing Winston-Salem police Sgt. Howard Plouff, but was spared the possibility of life in prison when the jury rejected a charge of first-degree murder, instead settling on a lesser charge

Carter was charged with first-degree murder and two counts of felony engaging in a riot in the shooting at the Red Rooster nightclub three years ago. If he had been convicted of first-degree murder, he would have received life without the possibility of parole.

But after 10 hours of deliberations over two days, jurors convicted him of second-degree murder, felony engaging in a riot while in possession of a handgun, and misdemeanor engaging in a riot.

The trial's sentencing phase will begin this morning in Forsyth Superior Court. Under state law, Carter, who doesn't have a prior criminal record, could face eight to 17 years in prison for his convictions on the three charges.

"It was a very fair verdict," said Capt. David Clayton, who oversees criminal investigations for the Winston-Salem Police Department.

Joyce Plouff, Plouff's widow, hugged prosecutor David Hall before she left the courtroom with Walter Holton, an attorney who represents her in a wrongful-death lawsuit she filed against Carter and others last year. She did not talk to the media.

Clayton said that she would not comment on the case because Carter hadn't been sentenced.

Kim Carter, Carter's mother, walked out of the Forsyth County Hall of Justice with her family and Bishop Sheldon McCarter of Greater Cleveland Avenue Christian Church. She declined to comment until after the sentencing, as did Hall and David Freedman, Carter's attorney.

Police Chief Scott Cunningham also said he would not comment until after Carter is sentenced.

Plouff died on Feb. 23, 2007, after being shot earlier that morning at the Red Rooster on Jones­town Road, where he arrived to help off-duty sheriff's deputies break up fights that had spilled out into the parking lot.

Prosecutors argued that Carter, then a senior at Winston-Salem State University, threw a chair inside the club as fights broke out, hitting one man in the head. A group of people then beat Carter, prosecutors said.

When Carter got outside, he was so angry that he went to his car and grabbed his gun from under the driver's seat, prosecutors said. He then went over to the passenger side, took an ammunition clip out of his glove compartment and loaded the gun, they said.

He fired into the crowd seven times, with one bullet hitting Plouff in the right side of his neck, prosecutors said. The bullet struck his carotid artery and jugular vein, and damaged his spine, paralyzing him from the neck down, according to testimony from Dr. Donald Jason, a Forsyth County medical examiner.

Plouff died later at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Plouff was the first Winston-Salem police officer to be killed in the line of duty since 1995, when Officer Stephen Amos II was shot in the chest. Last October, Sgt. Mickey Hutchens died after he was shot in the face by a man fleeing police along Peters Creek Parkway.

Beth Hutchens, Hutchens' widow, attended much of the Carter trial to offer support to Joyce Plouff. She declined to comment.

The jury heard nearly a week of testimony in the case. And in closing statements, prosecutors argued two scenarios for first-degree murder.

One was under the felony murder rule, in which someone is considered guilty of first-degree murder if that person committed the killing during the commission of another felony. Typically, that underlying felony is burglary or robbery. In Carter's case, the prosecution said, it was engaging in a riot with serious injury.

But the jury rejected that argument.

Prosecutors also argued for first-degree murder under premeditation and deliberation.

Freedman spent much of the trial and his closing arguments attacking the prosecutor's use of the felony murder rule in this case. He said that the charge of felony engaging in a riot is unconstitutional, vague and broad.

And, he argued, under the state's theory, many of the partygoers at the Red Rooster conceivably could have been charged with first-degree murder, but only Carter was charged with engaging in a riot.

Carter did not testify, and Freedman did not call any witnesses.

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