Darick Demorris Walker v. Commonwealth of Virginia

Summary

The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed Darick Walker's capital murder convictions and death sentence for the kick-door shootings of Stanley Beale and Clarence Threat, together with his burglary and firearms convictions. The court rejected facial constitutional challenges to Virginia's death penalty statutes, held that no bill of particulars or discovery beyond exculpatory material was owed, and confirmed that unadjudicated criminal conduct is admissible at capital sentencing as relevant to future dangerousness without any independent standard of proof. Evidentiary rulings admitting the cartridge and photographs and excluding toxicologist and prison-conditions testimony were upheld, the evidence of guilt and of both aggravating factors was found sufficient, and mandatory proportionality review concluded the death sentence was neither excessive nor disproportionate — the first affirmed under Code Sec. 18.2-31(8)'s three-year multiple-murder provision.