West Virginia’s Supreme Court has reversed the conviction of a man sentenced to life in prison for murder, saying that extraordinary precautions were not taken to ensure he received a fair trial after a juror was dismissed and replaced with another.
The court sent the case of Quenton Avery Sheffield back to Cabell County. Sheffield was sentenced in 2020 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder in a shooting that killed a 20-year-old man and wounded the man’s girlfriend. The Supreme Court wrote that there is a presumption of prejudice to a defendant’s right to a fair trial when a discharged alternate juror is recalled.