Bobby Ramdass was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Mohammad Kayani
According to court documents Bobby Ramdass would rob a store and in the process would fatally shoot Mohammad Kayani. Three days before Ramdass would shoot a cab driver in the back of the head who thankfully survived
Bobby Ramdass would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Bobby Ramdass would be executed by lethal injection on December 6 2000
Bobby Ramdass Photos
Bobby Ramdass FAQ
When Was Bobby Ramdass Executed
Bobby Ramdass was executed on December 6 2000
Bobby Ramdass Case
Nineteen days and a legal technicality may have meant the difference between life and death for Bobby Lee Ramdass. Ramdass is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday, becoming the 14th person executed in Virginia this year, a record since the state resumed executions in 1982.
Virginia is second only to Texas in the number of executions this year.
Bobby Ramdass’ last-minute appeal, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, hinges on whether the judge who heard the case should have informed the jury that Ramdass never would have been eligible for parole if the panel had sentenced him to life in prison.
A Norfolk attorney who is seeking to stop the execution said the jury that convicted Ramdass was led to believe that he may have been eligible for parole if he got a life sentence, and felt bound to sentence him to death. The jury even asked the judge if Ramdass would ever be eligible for parole, but the judge would not answer the question directly. “Any jurors who are considering death need to know if life in prison means no eligibility for parole, especially if the jury asks,” said attorney F. Nash Bilisoly, a maritime lawyer handling his first death-penalty case. The Virginia attorney general’s office disagrees and is fighting to make sure that Ramdass is put to death Tuesday.
No one disputes that Bobby Ramdass is a heartless two-time killer.
Ramdass, 27, began his life of crime when he was 13. In his teens, he piled on convictions for theft, burglary, robbery, gun possession and escape, according to court documents. The Fairfax County man went on a robbery and killing spree during summer 1992, when he was 20. He shot 7-Eleven clerk Mohammad Z. Kayani in the head during a robbery, held up two fast-food restaurants and killed a drug dealer, all within the span of six weeks. Kayani also was killed. Court-appointed psychiatrists and social workers blamed Ramdass’ actions on a bleak and abusive upbringing by a neglectful mother who was a topless dancer and a father who beat him as a boy because he did not believe Ramdass was his son.
But no one, not even Ramdass’ lawyers, are using that to excuse his behavior. All his lawyers are asking the U.S. Supreme Court for is another chance with a jury. “If that jury then comes back with a sentence of death, then I don’t think Bobby Ramdass has anything to complain about,” Bilisoly said.
The technicality in the case revolves around the 19 days between Ramdass’ murder conviction on Jan. 30, 1993, and the day a judge signed a sentencing order in a prior robbery. If the judge had counted that robbery conviction — which another jury had handed down 23 days earlier — as Ramdass’ second strike, the judge would have been bound by Virginia law to inform the jury in the capital-murder case that Ramdass would not be eligible for parole under the old three-strikes rule. That law mandated life without parole for anyone convicted of three violent felonies. The jury even asked the judge: If the defendant is given life, is there a possibility of parole at some time before his natural life?'' The answer should have been no, Bilisoly said. Ramdass already had been sentenced to 76 years for the first robbery and was scheduled to receive 18 years for the second robbery. But the judge counted only one strike. He told the jury:You should impose such punishment as you feel is just under the evidence and within the instructions of the court. You are not to concern yourselves with what may happen afterwards.” Bilisoly said he is not suggesting that the judge or prosecutors did anything illegal or unethical.
“But there can be no doubt that it resulted in an uninformed jury that felt it had no choice but to impose the death sentence,” Bilisoly wrote in his clemency petition to Gov. Jim Gilmore. Three jurors in the capital-murder case later told defense attorneys that they would have voted against a death sentence had they known that Ramdass never would have been eligible for parole, Bilisoly said.
In a further twist, 18 months after Ramdass was sentenced to death, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a South Carolina case that nearly mirrors Ramdass’ case that jurors must be informed if a defendant will not be eligible for parole if sentenced to life. Ramdass’ attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to apply that South Carolina case to Ramdass.We are not asking for the court to order that he be given life without parole. We're asking that it go back to the jury and let them decide,'' Bilisoly said. Appeals court judges have been divided on the issue as well. U.S. District Court Judge Raymond A. Jackson in Norfolk sent Ramdass'case back for resentencing, but that decision was overturned by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative courts in the country. Fourth Circuit Judge Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. of Baltimore, who disagreed with the majority's decision, wrote of the technicality:Splitting hairs when a man’s life is at stake is not becoming to a judiciary or a legal system.”
The state attorney general’s office on Thursday said this legal argument has been tried in the past and has failed. The claim that Ramdass' attorney is making is one that is frequently made in capital cases, and it's not one that we feel has merit,'' said David Botkins, a spokesman for Attorney General Mark Earley.The bottom line is that he was found guilty in a Circuit Court in Fairfax County,” Botkins said.
If the U.S. Supreme Court rejects Bilisoly’s argument, Ramdass’ only chance will be clemency from the governor. Gilmore has granted clemency in only one other death-penalty case. If Ramdass’ case is sent back for resentencing, a new jury will be given two options, life or the death penalty. But this time, jurors would be informed that Ramdass has no chance for parole. In addition to the 94 years he’s serving for the two robberies, Ramdass is also serving another life term for a separate murder conviction he received subsequent to the capital-murder conviction.
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