CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha County Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit sentenced a Charleston man Tuesday to the maximum time behind bars for a July 2020 shooting.
Tabit told Shaiheed Moore, 24, it’s fortunate he didn’t kill Blake Thompson, 26, of Dunbar, when he shot him during a drug deal on Charleston’s West Side. It happened while Moore was on probation for a Morgantown shooting.
Moore, who pleaded guilty in June to malicious wounding and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, asked Tabit for home confinement or to be placed in the Anthony Center for youthful offenders.
“So I’m not asking you for a second chance, I’m asking you for another chance,” Moore told Tabit. “Now that unfortunately I’ve been able to experience incarceration, I see this is not the lifestyle for me. This is not the way my mother and my father raised me to be.”
Tabit denied the request and gave Moore the maximum time on both convictions, which is 5-15 years. She told him he could be out in three years if he earns good time credit.
“Three years may sound like a long time but it’s not a long time and it certainly isn’t a long time in my view having almost killing someone,” Tabit said.
Tabit also pointed to Moore’s violent past. She said he’s already been convicted on three charges involving guns and he’s only 24.
“What this is showing me is that he decisions you are making are becoming more and more reckless, very easily that victim could have been killed,” Tabit said.
A Monongalia County circuit judge placed Moore on probation after an October 2018 incident in downtown Morgantown where Moore fired several shots during a crowded night on High Street. No one was injured.
Moore remains in the South Central Regional Jail.