Compton convicted in fatal wreck

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Melvin Chadwick Compton is free – for now.
Compton, 38, entered Alford guilty pleas Thursday morning in Wythe County Circuit Court to felony involuntary manslaughter and a second driving while intoxicated misdemeanor offense stemming from a car wreck on Sept. 20, 2007.
An Alford plea allows a defendant to maintain his innocence while conceding that the commonwealth has enough evidence to convict him.
After Compton spent the weekend in custody at the New River Valley Regional Jail, a Circuit Court clerk reported that he left the facility Monday on a $20,000 bond. The bond will allow him to remain out of jail until his Sept. 15 sentencing hearing.
During his plea hearing Thursday morning, Compton emotionally told the judge that he regrets his role in the September 2007 crash that led to his cousin’s death.
The Bland County resident was the driver in the single-vehicle wreck on U.S. 52 in Wythe County that killed Stanley Joel Tickle, also of Bland.
“I’d just like to say that given the chance, I would trade places with my cousin in a heartbeat, and I dearly, dearly wish this hadn’t happened, but it did,” Compton said as he struggled to hold back tears after entering his pleas.
Compton, dressed in a dark suit with a black shirt and black tie, was taken into custody after his court appearance due to Wythe County Commonwealth’s Attorney Gerald Mabe objecting to the defense’s request for Compton to remain free on his already-posted $10,000 bond.
Because of a lack of communication between the prosecution and the defense, Marty Parks, Compton’s attorney, was surprised when Mabe voiced his objection.
“I’m just shocked that we did this,” Parks said to Lee Harrell, Wythe County’s deputy commonwealth’s attorney, in the courthouse lobby before the pair moved to another room to discuss Compton’s custody status.
The parties then went back before Judge Josiah T. Showalter Jr. after a court recess with a bond agreement. Compton also came back into the courtroom – albeit minus his tie.
The attorneys proposed an agreement to allow Compton to remain free until his sentencing hearing on a bond doubled to $20,000.
Showalter, however, initially declined to make a ruling on the request, citing the fact that members of Tickle’s family who attended the initial court session already had gone home.
Compton thus remained in custody until Showalter approved the $20,000 bond at a second hearing Monday morning.
During Thursday’s recess, Parks acknowledged that he hadn’t discussed Compton’s custody status with Harrell or Mabe prior to the plea hearing, but said in most cases bond status remains unchanged through a sentencing hearing.
“I don’t think we normally discuss it,” he said.
Also during the break, Harrell said that there was no plea bargain – for sentencing or bond – in place prior to Thursday’s hearing.
“We didn’t have an agreement at all today,” Harrell said.
Mabe indicated that he had difficulty choosing an appropriate sentence to propose for Compton and as a result decided to leave it up to a judge.
“I didn’t know what number to pick,” he said.
But the commonwealth’s attorney said he wasn’t comfortable with allowing Compton to remain free without raising the bond amount.
“He’s got some pretty serious charges,” Mabe said.
Compton faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on his felony charge.
At a Wythe County General District Court hearing in February, Compton was found guilty of the second DWI offense and sentenced to 60 days in jail, with 30 days suspended, and a fine of $2,500, with $1,000 of that total suspended. He also was ordered to pay court costs and given a year on probation and a three-year suspension of his driver’s license.
He appealed the DWI conviction to Circuit Court and after Thursday’s guilty plea will be re-sentenced on the misdemeanor at the Sept. 15 hearing, where he will also receive his sentence on the felony involuntary manslaughter charge.
In summarizing the commonwealth’s evidence against Compton, Mabe said that a Virginia State Police trooper had found open alcoholic beverage containers in the red 1997 Ford Explorer involved in the wreck.
Mabe added that there was a “lack of brake marks” at the crash site, which he said indicated a “lack of effort to stop the vehicle” by Compton.
Tickle died due to “catastrophic head injuries” suffered in the wreck, Mabe said.
A blood test Compton received after being taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital for his own medical treatment on the night of the crash determined his blood alcohol level to be 0.15. The legal limit to drive in Virginia is 0.08.
Mabe said a urine test also showed a “toxin found in marijuana” to be in Compton’s system on the night of the wreck.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 1-800-655-1406 or .