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Benjamin R. David
District Attorney
State of North Carolina
General Court of Justice
Fifth Prosecutorial District
Wilmington, NC 28402
Post Office Box 352
Phone: (910) 341-1401
Fax: (910) 815-3560
July 15,2010
To Members of the Media:
Earlier today, two separate defendants pled guilty to their crimes, ensuring that they will spend the
rest of their natural lives in prison. Jamey Cheek and Kyle Berry were sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of parole in unrelated murder cases. Both were originally sentenced to death
for their crimes.
JAMEYCHEEK
Jamey Cheek was convicted in July 1997 by a New Hanover County jury for the murder of Barbara
Oxendine and sentenced to death. The jury's verdict was affIrmed by the North Carolina Supreme
Court in 1999. In March of this year, a Federal District Court upheld the conviction but vacated the
death sentence, noting that the trial court should have allowed the jury to consider evidence
regarding Mr. Cheek's co-defendant in the sentencing hearing.
The trial court ruled at the time of trial that Mr. Cheek was not entitled to know the identity of a
confIdential informant or to introduce the diary of the deceased co-defendant which suggested prior
violent conduct by that co-defendant. This recent federal decision found that for sentencing
purposes, the co-defendant's violent past should have been considered in weighiPg his influence on
Mr. Cheek. This issue has been previously litigated over the last decade.
The State will not retry the sentencing phase of a case that is now almost fourteen (14) years old.
Accordingly, the defendant's sentence will be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of
parole. Under the law, he will spend the rest of his natural life in prison.
KYLE BERRY
Kyle Berry was convicted in March of 2001 by a New Hanover County jury for the 1998 murder of
Teresa Fetter and sentenced to death. The conviction was upheld by the North Carolina Supreme
Court but the sentence was vacated in 2002. The State again tried Berry for the death penalty and
another jury sentenced him to death in 2004. While his conviction and sentence was affIrmed by the
North Carolina Supreme Court, his sentence was vacated earlier this year by a trial court during a
motion for appropriate relief.
Mr. Berry was also charged with the 1998 murder of Lisa Maves at Wrightsville Beach. The Maves
case was presented in the Fetter case for sentencing purposes but has been left untried pending
Berry's appeal of the Fetter conviction. Part of today's plea is that Berry is now pleading guilty to
the fIrst degree murder of Lisa Maves. Mr. Berry also waived, to the extent possible, the endless
appeals that would otherwise continue for both of these murder convictions. Under the law, he will
spend the rest of his natural life in prison serving two consecutive life sentences.
•
Cheek and Berry resentencing, pg. 2
CONCLUSION
We believed that the death penalty was the appropriate punishment for Kyle Berry and Jamey Cheek
when we tried their cases many years ago and juries in New Hanover County and the North
Carolina Supreme Court agreed. Both of these defendants have had their punishments set aside
after years of courts looking at their cases and affirming the juries' verdicts-no court, including the
Federal District Court that set aside Cheek's sentence or the State Superior Court that set aside
Berry's sentence, has ever concluded that these defendants were innocent of their crimes. The
actions of these defendants caused and continue to cause immeasurable harm to the families
involved.
Whenever a death sentence is set aside, we must analyze whether it is best to retry the sentencing
phases of these cases. Among the many factors to consider in deciding whether to seek a death
penalty for a second, or even third time, include the likelihood that the defendant will actually be put
to death after years of exhaustive appeals and the certainty of bringing some amount of legal closure
to the victims' families to create the best environment for the families to begin the healing process.
Every case must stand on its own. In undertaking this analysis, and after discussing the matter at
length with investigators and victims' family members, we have determined that today's pleas best
achieve justice in these individual cases, while preventing further hurt to three families which are
completely blameless.
We are committed to being a strong voice for victims, inside and outside the courtroom. The death
penalty remains the law in North Carolina and my office will continue to seek it in appropriate cases.
Sincerely,
-:s.-;~--\\
Benjamm R. David
District Attorney