Thomas Case Summary 

 The night events began with a social evening of dinner and bar hopping by two plain clothed off-duty Beckley Police Officers. It descended into a series of abortive attempts, no less than four, to make a spare of the moment alleged undercover drug buys. The trial focused less on the facts of the case, but rather on the frequently expressed personal opinions.

On the night of August 28th and early morning hours of August 29th, 2006, off duty Beckley Police Officers William Reynolds and Charles “Chuck” Smith went to dinner and had drinks at a local restaurant. The evening was meant to be social and not work related. They had not discussed or planned doing any kind of undercover drug operations that night. In fact Reynolds was not a narcotics officer at the time, and he was not carrying his service gun. After dinner at Applebee’s, followed by alcoholic beverages they decided to visit Billy Joe’s Bar and Grill. While they were at Billy Joe’s, Smith's girlfriend Jasmine Gonzales joined them at the bar. Jasmine was not a fellow police officer but a civilian. Smith, Reynolds and Gonzales continued their night of bar hopping and drinking, After a short while at Billy Joe’s they decided to go to Pikeview Lounge. 

While at Pikeview a man named Timothy Blackburn recognized and approached Smith. He told Smith that he can take him across town on a drug buy to bust a known drug dealer. According to Gonzales, Smith had first refused Blackburn offer, and according to the police statement, Gonzales stated that Smith then responded by saying, “You need to call me, We need to set something up the right way…” Smith stated “we do not do things like that.” But ultimately Smith changed his mind. At Smith's direction, Reynolds and Gonzales got into Smith’s personal vehicle and decided to trail behind Timothy Blackburn’s pick up truck across town. (This would be their first attempt of the night to find drugs.) The three individuals followed Blackburn to a location where the alleged drug deal was going to occur. They arrived on Saunders Avenue, in which they waited for a period of time in the parking lot, but no one showed up for the drug deal, Blackburn decided to leave. It's important to note that there is no record of anyone having acknowledgement from the Beckley Police Departments night supervisor of being aware of or giving authorization to this pursuit/drug operation and “Ride Along.”   

Reynold, and Smith then approached the apartment belonging to an alleged known drug user named Alfreda Lawson. Lawson and Blackburn had dealings in the past with each other and once lived in the same neighborhood. Smith wanted Lawson to find another dealer since the first dealer was a no show. Lawson agreed, she offered to give Smith her apartment keys as a security deposit, in case she did not deliver the drugs or his money back, giving him full access to Lawson's apartment. Gonzales took the keys and held onto them for Smith. Lawson and Smith walked together on foot up the street towards an alleged known drug area. (This would be the second attempt to find drugs.)

At this point, the stories told by William Reynolds and Jasmine Gonzales became radically different. Based on their statements. Smith abandoned the situation with Lawson when Smith spotted a vehicle parked down the hill. Reynolds driving Smith’s jeep came to the top of the hill, Smith then got into the driver seat while the vehicle he spotted pulled out, that's when a chase ensued. The trio followed the car and pulled it over. Smith and Reynolds patted down all the occupants of the vehicle and found nothing illegal and decided to let them go. In Gonzales' statement to police she stated that when they approached the vehicle, Smith jumped out of his vehicle and pulled his gun on the occupants of the stopped vehicle. The occupants fled in their vehicle and Smith lost them during the pursuit. (This would be their third attempted to find drugs.) 

Thereafter Smith, Reynold and Gonzales returned to Lawson's apartment to return her keys that Lawson left with them as a security deposit. Jasmine Gonzales testified in co-defendant, Michael Martin’s trial, that when they reached Lawson's apartment, Reynolds went to the door and began “screaming and cussing, being mean and nasty, and very hateful” towards Lawson. Supposedly Lawson took the money and they never received any drugs.  According to Lawson’s statement to police, she stated that the two off-duty police officers attempted an unlawful entry into her apartment. She stated one of them pulled out a pocket knife and started beating on her door. Then he proceeded to call her outside of her name and threaten to cut her nose off. 

During this commotion co-defendant Michael Martin first appeared when he was drawn to the scene that Reynolds and Smith was creating outside Lawson’s apartment at approximately 3:45am. According to Martin, in his statement to police that he tried to defuse the altercation between Smith, Reynolds and Lawson. Martin also stated he was asked by Smith and Reynolds to obtain drugs for them with the promise of being paid a hundred dollars. Martin was a known drug addict and was unaware the two men were off duty plain clothed police officers. Martin agreed and Smith allowed Martin to use his cell phone. Martin made an unrecorded phone call to Thomas Leftwich to initiate an unauthorized set-up. Martin was not hired to be their C.I. (This would be their fourth attempt to find drugs.) 

Martin, Reynolds and Gonzales got into Smith’s personal vehicle, Gonzales became concerned because there was a lot of police equipment in open view that Martin could have seen. Gonzales proceeded to conceal the radio from Martin. Gonzales testified that she had never before been taken on a drug investigation or “ride along” with Smith.

The foursome proceeded across town and parked across the street from a house located on top of a hill. According to Reynolds, Martin asked Smith if he had the money? Smith proceeded to argue with Martin because he wanted to go with Martin to make the alleged drug deal. Martin eventually agreed, the two of them started walking towards the house to an area near the bottom of the street, there were two flights of stairs  leading to the Leftwich family home. Martin used Smith’s cell phone to place another call to get Thomas Leftwich to come outside to meet him at the bottom of the stairs. By this time it was approximately around 4:00 am. Once Leftwich made it outside he was confronted by Martin and unexpectedly Smith. Words were exchanged between Leftwich and Martin due to the fact Martin was not alone. Leftwich was ambushed by one of the intoxicated men, while Smith disregard the man he picked up as their go-between, the intoxicated man whose identity was not known at the time of the incident, was later identified as an off duty officer.  Leftwich testified that Smith began to threaten him and proceeded to make a statement to him saying that "today is your bad day,” Smith started to reach for something from his waistline as if he was going to retrieve a gun. Leftwich, believing his life was in danger, and acting in self-defense, pulled his weapon and fired shots towards Smith. Smith returned fire which resulted in a shootout. It was later revealed several hours later that Smith unfortunately passed away. Not once during his interaction with Leftwich, Smith ever identified himself as a police officer. 

At trial Leftwich counsel notified the court that his defense would be self-defense and also moved to have the decedent blood samples evaluated contending that the actions prior to the shooting were relevant. Thereafter, the court entered a Pre-Trial Order ruling that the character of the deceased was immaterial and that the defense would be prohibited from asserting that the victim was a rogue cop or drug user. Leftwich was prohibited by the judge from questioning the off-duty officers' outrageous misconduct during his trial. In fact they went on to say that they were on duty despite the fact that they were actually on their scheduled off day. And then for the state to disregard all the unlawful actions of the off-duty officers, to place all the blame on Leftwich, to whom they would have never come in contact with, if it wasn't for their I’m above the law and can do what I want behavior that night. Their unauthorized and unsupervised actions, to draw Thomas Leftwich out of his home to engage with him. The trial court took great efforts to alter the narrative and clean up the off duty officers' unauthorized conduct that led up to this unlawful pursuit of Thomas Leftwich 

On March 14, 2008, Leftwich was convicted on all counts. Leftwich was sentenced to Life Imprisonment without Parole for murder; a consecutive term of not less than one, no more than five years for conspiracy and the firearm count was folded into the life sentence. During trial, the Judge allowed the state to add to the jury instructions to include robbery as an underlying felony to the indictment for felony murder. 

 By failing to acknowledge the evidence of the case shows that Thomas E. Leftwich was approached in a threatening and unlawful manner at four in the morning; because of this unlawful pursuit Thomas has served over 18 years of his Life Sentence wrongfully Convicted. Continuously fighting for justice against a judicial system that has been highly biased to the evidence in this case for something that should not have been allowed to occur.

As one criminal defense Attorney John Bryan said in a published news article “Maybe no one cares in this case, but as I always say, you will care when your brother or son is wrongly accused of a crime and the state puts the conviction machine to work against them.”

The conviction machine is led by elected officials, who we the people have the power to elect and unelect. If they are not doing their jobs right, correct and allowing cover ups and wrongful convictions to happen under their watch. Then we as the people need to vote to get these officials out of office immediately. So no one else will have to endure the emotional and mental anguish of having a loved one wrongfully incarcerated. Change can not and will not come until we get out and vote to make the necessary changes!!!! 

Mr. Leftwich and his family would like the whole truth in its entirety about the unfortunate events of that fateful night to be told. Praying that the courts will not continue to turn an blind eye to justice, But to do their job and re-write this injustice. Thomas should be granted a retrial, a fair and unbiased one. Or to have his life sentence Vacated, or at the very least to be  released with time served. The fight for Justice for Thomas Leftwich will not stop until justice finally prevails!!!!