The trial of Richardson Dangleben Jr., who was arrested in July 2023 and charged with murdering V.I. Police Detective Delberth Phipps Jr., is scheduled to start Oct. 6 on St. Thomas.
The scheduling came less than a week after Chief District Judge Robert Molloy denied the U.S. Justice Department’s eleventh-hour request for a 120-day stay to review its decision not to seek the death penalty.
Undeterred, the Justice Department once again filed notice Wednesday of its intent to seek the death penalty, writing that “the United States believes the circumstances in Count One of the Superseding Indictment (Use of a Firearm During a Crime of Violence Resulting in Death) are such that, in the event of a conviction, a sentence of death is justified” under federal law.
Last February, then-U. S. Attorney for the Virgin Islands Delia Smith and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Conley wrote that the government “intends to proceed with either a non-capital trial or plea agreement in this matter and will not seek the death penalty for Richardson Dangleben Jr.,” according to court documents.
The government changed course in February after President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety.” According to a memo sent to employees at the time, the Justice Department said it “will once again act as the law demands — including by seeking death sentences in appropriate cases and swiftly implementing those sentences in accordance with the law.”
In a nine-page opinion denying government prosecutors’ request, Molloy rejected the government’s argument that “because the trial in this matter has been continued without date, any delay as a result of a stay is not prejudicial to Defendant.”
“However, the Government cannot dispute that the Court and the parties proceeded for over a year under the impression that the Government would not be seeking the death penalty,” he wrote. “The matter was set for trial for a date certain and that date was continued, in part, because of the Defendant’s reliance upon the Government’s notice not to seek the death penalty.”
