Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 25, 1990                   TAG: 9004250280
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

KILLER SEEKING EXECUTION CAN HAVE IT, JUSTICES RULE

The decision will let Arkansas authorities execute a man who killed 16 relatives and acquaintances during a 1987 rampage. No state appeals court has reviewed the validity of his convictions or sentence.

By a 7-2 vote, the justices ruled that only convicted mass murderer R. Gene Simmons - and not fellow death row inmate Jonas Whitmore - has the legal standing to challenge Simmons' death sentence.

Whitmore mounted his challenge even though Simmons prefers death to end "the torture and suffering in me." Whitmore had asked the justices to rule that state appeals courts must review all death sentences - even when not asked to do so by the condemned murderer.

Many states provide automatic appellate review in capital cases, regardless of the defendant's wishes. But Whitmore, trying to stand in for Simmons, had argued such review is constitutionally required.

The court did not address the constitutional issue, ruling instead that Whitmore cannot make such an argument on Simmons' behalf.

"Whitmore, having failed to establish that Simmons is [mentally] unable to proceed on his own behalf, does not have the legal standing to proceed," Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the court.

In other decisions, the court:

Ruled 6-3 in a case that could affect millions of dollars in movie industry profits that distributors of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Rear Window" must share with a literary agent earnings from the 1954 film's re-release.

Ruled 6-2 that the U.S. territory of Guam and its officials may not be sued for allegedly violating a much-used federal civil rights law.

The decision in the death penalty case lifted a stay the justices had imposed on the eve of Simmons' scheduled execution last year. Arkansas officials will be free to schedule a new execution date as soon as they officially receive word of the ruling, 25 days from Tuesday.

Justices Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, who oppose capital punishment in all circumstances, dissented from Tuesday's ruling.

"The court needlessly abdicates its grave responsibility to ensure that no person is wrongly executed," Marshall wrote for the two.

Simmons, 49, killed his wife, three sons, four daughters, a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law and four grandchildren at his home near Dover, Ark. He killed two acquaintances in the nearby town of Russellville. The victims, all slain in the days surrounding Christmas 1987, were shot or strangled.

He consistently has refused to appeal his convictions and death sentence.

"We are free to execute Mr. Simmons as long as he wishes to be executed," James Lee, a spokesman for state Attorney General Steve Clark, said after learning of Tuesday's ruling.

The sister of Simmons' slain wife, Becky, said she was relieved by the decision.

"All I can say is I know he wants to die, and it's now one chapter I know will be closed," said Viola O'Shields of Fort Payne, Ala. "It's been a most long, very hard three years."

O'Shields said she won't tell her mother, 81-year-old Maye Novak of Briggsdale, Colo., about the ruling until a new execution date is set.