Prosecution, Defense Cases on Display During Trial’s 1st Day Opening Arguments and Direct and Cross Examinations

After a full day devoted to jury selection, from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday, we understand the criminal trial of former Warren County Sheriff’s Office Deputies Zachary Fadely and Tyler Poe related to the April 15, 2022, death of 77-year-old Ralph Ennis in the wake of a traffic stop gone wrong 13 days earlier, got underway in Warren County Circuit Court in front of Judge Clark Ritchie.

Opening arguments outlined the prosecution and defense case strategies, as did direct and cross-examination of the Commonwealth’s first four called witnesses.

Those strategies are, first, from the prosecution’s side, that the defendants acted unnecessarily and even criminally aggressive in first trying to handcuff Ennis behind his back (Poe) during which Ennis’s hand and head were injured from slamming into the back cover and tail of his red pickup truck. And then Ennis suffered additional head injuries when both he and Poe, who was still attempting to cuff him, were taken to the ground of a three-person pile-up by Fadely in the hard-paved 7/11 parking lot at the entrance of the Crooked Run Shopping Center.

Testimony on day one indicated that pile-up was initiated when Fadely’s “tackling” initiative caused Ennis initially, and the deputies engaged with him, to fall over the trailer hitch on Ennis’s pickup truck. Ennis suffered what has been described as a “brain bleed” from his fall into the parking lot under the two deputies.

However, in a video presented from WCSO Deputy Christopher Pontious’s body cam, after initially screaming to be let up from the trio’s fall and repeating, “You’re killing me,” Ralph Ennis complained more about a hand injury than any problem with his head. In fact, he initially argued against going to the hospital, several witnesses admitted under cross-examination.

From the defense side, rather than reckless or malicious aggression, the two deputies, both relatively new to street patrol assignments after separately completing training academy instruction, were following training procedures in what had been declared a “high-risk stop” by the involved senior officer in what had been a slow-speed chase over about a four-mile stretch of Route 340/522 southbound toward Front Royal from around Fairground Road.

The “high-risk stop” designation was initiated by the involved senior officer, cited as WCSO Sgt. John Gregory altered the perception of those deputies becoming involved from the radio transmissions of the potential danger offered by the suspect or suspects in the involved vehicle as the situation developed southbound on Route 340/522. Could they be armed felons trying to escape a potential law enforcement inspection of their vehicle?

No one, from initially involved Deputy Christopher Pontious to others, including Fadely and Poe, knew why the unknown driver refused to pull over for a routine, misdemeanor traffic stop for an estimated four miles. It was noted during questioning that it was Pontious who first read Ennis’s vehicle doing 63 in a 55, then pulling in behind him saw his speed reduce to 53, 45, and eventually 35, all while ignoring Pontious behind him with lights and siren on. The vehicle was described by Pontious as driving increasingly erratically across lanes, endangering the occasional other traffic on the road around 1 a.m. in the morning.

It was also asserted in defense opening arguments that on the scene that night, when Ralph Ennis exited his vehicle and began to walk toward lead officer at the scene, Pontious, with keys in hand in what had been designated a “high-risk stop,” in the late-night lighting of the 7/11 parking lot, that he was not initially identifiable as an elderly or confused man suffering from dementia, but rather was IDed by some as a rather large, perhaps 6-foot-2, 220-pound man of unknown age, seemingly reluctant to follow law officers’ instructions.

Ralph Ennis on body cam footage in the 7/11 parking lot at Crooked Run on 4/2/22. Did he appear to be a menacing 6-foot-2, 220-pound possible armed felon or a confused, 77-year-old man fighting conflicting law enforcement instructions and advanced dementia? Royal Examiner File Photos

So, rather than senseless aggression by Poe and Fadely, they were acting per training for a high-risk stop in trying to eliminate a potential danger to other officers on the scene or themselves, defense counsel William “Beau” Bassler (Fadely) and Justin Daniel (Poe) argued in opening arguments and perhaps a cross-examination question here and there. Defense counsel also elicited cross-examination observations that defendant Poe offered first aid assistance after he realized Ennis had been injured in the group fall. Fadely was illustrated as having shown some care in his assignment of getting the “other occupants” of Ennis’s truck, his two cats, to the animal shelter after their owner was hospitalized.

Lead counsel Matthew Sweet represented the Special Prosecutor from the Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, assisted by Donshur Oliver and Christian Fernandez. All three were involved in the direct examination of various witnesses called by the prosecution on the trial’s opening day.

The prosecution witnesses in order of their calling on Tuesday were VSP Special Agent Adam Galton, WCSO Deputy Chris Pontious, Warren County Fire & Rescue Firefighter and Paramedic Adam Embrey, who drove the ambulance that transported the injured Ennis to Warren Memorial Hospital that night, and Ian Ennis, Ralph Ennis’s son.

Ian Ennis was the final witness called by the prosecution as they battled the clock after 5 p.m. in trying to wrap up while leaving the jury with a description of the physical before-and-after of Ralph Ennis in the year before the traffic stop incident and injuries and his remaining 13 days of life, ending on April 15, 2022.

Over a defense joint objection, the prosecution was allowed by Judge Ritchie to introduce several photos Ian Ennis had taken, including with his father at Ian’s wedding on October 2, 2021, at Winchester Medical Center, where Ralph Ennis was soon transferred from Warren Memorial Hospital after the aborted traffic stop of April 2, 2022, and even of jeans his dad was apparently wearing when he died in his first day of hospice care on April 15, 2022.

The Warren County Courthouse where the criminal jury trial of two former WCSO deputies involved in the aborted arrest of 77-year-old dementia sufferer Ralph Ennis is expected to run the balance of the week, if not longer.

As previously noted, in the wake of a Virginia State Police (VSP) Investigation turned over to the Special Prosecutor’s Office in Prince William County, Fadely is charged with one count of Malicious Wounding and one count of Felony Homicide. Poe is charged with one count of Unlawful Wounding and one count of Felony Homicide.

As described in Virginia Code § 18.2-51, “intent” is a crucial factor in these charges: “If any person maliciously (underlines added) shoot, stab, cut, or wound any person or by any means cause him bodily injury, with the intent to maim, disfigure, disable, or kill, he shall, except where it is otherwise provided, be guilty of a Class 3 felony. If such act be done unlawfully but not maliciously, with the intent aforesaid, the offender shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony.” Those parameters would appear to explain the diverse maximum sentence ranges the two defendants face. Poe faces up to five years with a charge of “Unlawful Wounding” versus Fadely, looking at what we have been told up to 20 years with the “Malicious Wounding” charge.