CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office is looking at a potentially groundbreaking legal case.
John Southerland was shot in June of 1997 at an apartment building off Eastway Drive in Charlotte. The shooting, a result of an alleged love triangle, left him a quadriplegic, but he just passed away on January 1.
A jury convicted 39-year-old Maurice Pheifer in August of 1999. He served eight years in prison.
Now the District Attorney is considering charging Phiefer with murder despite the 14-year time lag between the shooting and Southerland’s death.
"It's a fascinating issue. I think there is nothing in the statute that would prohibit him being charged," said George Laughrun, a prominent defense attorney and former prosecutor.
Even though Pheifer was convicted and the Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, Laughrun does not believe there is an issue with double jeopardy.
"Probably no double jeopardy here,” said Laughrun, “because a prosecutor could not have charged that offense at the time of the assault because the…victim had not died."
The challenge for prosecutors and those defending Pheifer will be the medical evidence showing a direct link between the shooting and the death 14 years later.
"I think it shows you how far medical science has come. It used to be an unwritten common law you had to die within a year and a day within the infliction of the injury," said Laughrun.
Phiefer declined to talk with NewsChannel 36 about these new developments as did Southerland’s family, but it’s clear the family wants to see this case proceed.
