VIDEOTAPED CONFESSION ALLOWED IN TRIAL

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 5, 1992                   TAG: 9202050320
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Short
VIDEOTAPED CONFESSION ALLOWED IN TRIAL
A judge ruled Tuesday that a videotaped confession will be admissible as evidence in the murder trial of Shawn P. Novak, who is accused of killing two young boys who lived in his neighborhood.
Circuit Judge John Moore made the ruling following two days of pretrial arguments. Novak's capital murder trial is scheduled to begin March 2.
The videotape shows a calm Novak, 16, smoking a cigarette as he talked to Detective Shawn Hoffman. But Novak appeared tense when Hoffman told him that a witness had seen him with the victims, Daniel Geier, 9, and Scot Weaver, 7.
Moments later, Novak admitted to the crime and began sobbing.
The boys' bodies, their throats slashed, were found in a wooded area stacked on top of each other and covered with leaves a day after they disappeared in March 1991 while riding their bicycles.
Hoffman has acknowledged that police lied about the witness and about Novak's fingerprints being found on one of the victims.
Novak's attorney, Richard G. Brydges, argued that police also lied to his client and to the boy's mother about whether Novak was a suspect.
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys defended the police tactics.
"I don't think any reasonable person could see that videotape and feel that police were overbearing in any way," he said.
Moore already has ruled that he alone, and not the jury, will decide Novak's punishment if the teen is convicted. Virginia law allows life imprisonment or a death sentence in capital murder cases.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB