After two deputies were shot while serving an arrest warrant on a murder suspect, Robeson County Sheriff Burnis Wilkins took a local judge to task for letting the man out on bond.
"I am 100% disgusted by certain parts of our judicial system," the sheriff said in a news conference Tuesday. "This suspect was out on bond."
"I feel the public’s frustration and the Sheriff’s frustration at the crime problem in Robeson County," Angelica McIntyre, the chief district judge of Robeson County, said in a statement.
"My judicial record shows that I have set some of the highest bonds ever set in Robeson County based on the evidence before me," she said.
The suspect, Shawn Locklear, 20, was arrested twice in 2022. He was charged in March of that year with armed robbery and then with murder in a November 2022 shooting, court records show.
Locklear was released on a $250,000 bond and under house arrest after a hearing in April, the judge said.
"Bonds are determined by many factors, including the evidence that is presented in court by the officers, witness cooperation, if a felony report has been provided to the District Attorney’s Office, and the particular facts of every case," she said.
The sheriff said deputies went out to the home near Maxton to arrest Locklear for violating the terms of his release. He ran when he saw deputies coming, Wilkins said.
"The disgusting part about all of this is, he's out, after already committing a felony, an armed robbery, earlier," the sheriff said.
"Had this guy been locked up where he was supposed to be, yes our jail is full, but I can make room for a murder suspect, I have never seen such a waste that murderers are walking around in this county the way they are," he said.
Shawn Locklear shot the two deputies, Jonathan Walters, 37, and Kaelin Locklear, 23, in wooded area near Old Red Springs Road at about 9:30 a.m., the sheriff said. The suspect got in one of the sheriff's office cars and reversed, running over a deputy's leg, the sheriff said.
The suspect was shot four or five times, the sheriff said, and was found in a car not far from the scene.
Shawn Locklear was flown to UNC Health for treatment. The two deputies were taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville, the sheriff said.
The judge who issued the bond said she was not allowed to comment on the merits of the case.
"I am allowed to confirm judicial proceedings which occurred, and proceedings in this case occurred in April 2023, where the defendant was given a 250,000 secured bond, in addition to house arrest through the pretrial release program. Another proceeding related to bond occurred in August 2023 before a different judge," McIntyre said.
"After the dates of these proceedings in this case, I am grateful that North Carolina law changed effective October 1, 2023, to allow district court judges additional authority to deny bond to violent and repeat offenders as well as those on pretrial release who commit a new offense," she said.
How does bond get decided in N.C.?
Spectrum News 1 spoke with Dionne Gonder-Stanley, who is an N.C Central clinical associate professor and the supervising attorney of the criminal defense clinic. She talked generally about the procedure of setting bond in North Carolina. She didn't speak on the Robeson County shooting but provided insight into how a suspect is released on bail in the state.
Gonder-Stanley said deciding bond and pretrial release conditions requires judges to consider many factors, including the suspect's likelihood of showing up for their court date, the threat they could pose to the public, past criminal history, the evidence gathered by law enforcement, and even familial and community ties to the area. While it’s impossible to know what someone will do when they are released, judges must look at all these factors when deciding release conditions, Gonder-Stanely said.
Once a judge has weighed all the factors, they determine what bond amount and what other security measures, like house arrest, are needed to help keep the public safe. Under state law, however, judges can seek to keep a suspect in jail through the pretrial process if certain conditions are met. These conditions include if the suspect is charged with capital murder or if they have a criminal history using firearms.
“There are a couple of instances where the law will set a rebuttable presumption where the presumption is that the person should not be released, but the judge is still required to consider those basic factors: what will reasonably assure a person appears for court and what reasonably assures the safety of the community if they are in fact released,” Gonder-Stanley said.
The powers district court judges have in determining pretrial release are well-established in state law, Gonder-Stanley said. But the recent law changes that went into effect on Oct. 1 related to the pre-trial process altered the role magistrate judges play in the pretrial release process in cases such as murder.
“The law change on Oct. 1st, in terms of setting certain presumptions and authorities of magistrate judges to set pre-trial release conditions on certain charges. But district court judges have always maintained their authority to set pre-trial release conditions,” Gonder-Stanley said.