ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 25, 1996 TAG: 9611250177
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
LEM DAVIS TUGGLE
FACTS: Tuggle was convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the rape and murder of a Smyth County woman. At the time of that murder, Tuggle was on parole for an earlier murder.
LEGAL ISSUES: At issue is Tuggle's argument that a state psychiatrist interviewed him ``by subterfuge'' and that the trial judge erred when he refused to let Tuggle's lawyers hire their own psychiatrist.
BACKGROUND: Tuggle's case has been through a series of up and downs in both state and federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated his sentence in 1985 because of the psychiatric issue, but the Virginia Supreme Court reaffirmed it on other grounds. In 1994, U.S. District Judge James Turk found seven constitutional errors in Tuggle's trial and ordered a new one. Among those errors: that the jury was not impartial and that the state did not have enough evidence to prove rape. Without the rape, the crime would not be punishable by death. The 4th Circuit overruled Turk. The U.S. Supreme Court took the case for a second time in 1995, reversed it, and ordered the 4th Circuit to review it again. The 4th Circuit did, and ruled against Tuggle.
GREGORY WARREN BEAVER
FACTS: Beaver, represented by court-appointed attorneys, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death for shooting Virginia State Trooper Leo Whitt in Prince George County on April 12, 1985.
LEGAL ISSUES: Beaver says he did not receive a fair trial, because one of the lawyers appointed to defend him, Thomas Rainey, was a part-time prosecutor in neighboring Dinwiddie County at the time of his trial. Rainey is now the full-time commonwealth's attorney for Dinwiddie County. Beaver's other court-appointed attorney, Petersburg lawyer John Henry Maclin, was disbarred in October for neglecting his clients. The two lawyers advised Beaver to plead guilty in exchange for the prosecution's agreement not to make an argument at sentencing. Christopher McMurray, Beaver's current lawyer, says that agreement was worthless to Beaver, but that it spared Rainey the political embarrassment of representing a man charged with killing a trooper at the same time he was running for the office of Dinwiddie commonwealth's attorney. This conflict of interest, McMurray argues, compromised Beaver's constitutional right to a lawyer.
BACKGROUND: All of the courts in which Beaver has filed appeals have affirmed his conviction. However, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge K.K. Hall wrote a strong dissent in an opinion published in September. ``Though the act that Beaver is accused of committing is a particularly evil one,'' Hall wrote, ``he should not be compelled to face the most final of judgments without ever having had the assistance of a lawyer whose loyalty is beyond question.''
RONALD LEE HOKE
FACTS: Hoke, a former mental patient from Hagerstown, Md., was convicted in Petersburg in August 1986 for the October 1985 capital murder of 56-year-old Virginia E. Stell. Hoke confessed to killing Stell, but denied raping, robbing and abducting her. At trial, one of Hoke's court-appointed lawyers was John Henry Maclin, recently disbarred for neglecting his clients.
LEGAL ISSUES: Hoke's current lawyer, Gerald Zerkin, argues that the prosecution withheld key evidence at trial. That evidence - crucial to rendering the crime punishable by death - consisted of police interviews with three men who, like Hoke, said they met the victim in a bar and went home with her for sex. Zerkin also argues that the prosecution knowingly presented false testimony from a jail inmate who, in exchange for a reduction in his sentence, testified that Hoke told him he committed the crime for purposes of robbery. Without rape, prosecutors needed a robbery motive to render Hoke eligible for the death penalty.
BACKGROUND: In January, U.S. District Judge Robert Merhige ruled that prosecutors had, in fact, illegally withheld evidence and presented false testimony in the case. But in August, a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit overruled. The evidence ``was reasonably available'' to Hoke's lawyers, wrote Judge Michael Luttig. Had they undertaken a ``reasonable and diligent'' investigation, the lawyers would have found the same three men. As for the false testimony, Luttig wrote, there was no proof that it was false, and, even if it were, there was no proof that jurors in the case would have rendered a different verdict if they hadn't heard it. One 4th Circuit judge, K.K. Hall, strongly disagreed. ``There are two villains in this case,'' Hall wrote in his dissent. ``The first is ... Ronald Hoke, who committed a brutal murder and deserves a fitting punishment. The other villain, prosecutor Joseph Preston, left no legal or ethical corner uncut in his pursuit of Hoke's conviction and death sentence.''
LARRY ALLEN STOUT
FACTS: Stout, represented by court-appointed attorneys, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of the owner of a Staunton dry-cleaning business.
LEGAL ISSUES: William Bobbitt, Stout's lawyer, called only Stout as a witness at his sentencing, and presented no evidence to mitigate Stout's role in the murder. In investigating his background, Stout's new lawyers found that he grew up the only black child in a large, impoverished migrant family. Stout's stepfather routinely raped the children and forced them to have sex with one another while he watched. As a result of these practices, Stout fathered a child by his mentally retarded sister at age 13. Because none of this was brought to light at Stout's sentencing, Stout's lawyers argue, Stout's constitutional right to an effective lawyer was denied.
BACKGROUND: U.S. District Judge James Turk agreed Bobbitt was ineffective and granted Stout a new sentencing. But the 4th Circuit reversed Turk, calling Bobbitt's decision to put on no witnesses ``a conscious, strategic decision.''
JOSEPH ROGER O'DELL III
FACTS: O'Dell was sentenced to die for the 1985 rape and murder of a woman in Virginia Beach.
LEGAL ISSUES: O'Dell claims his sentencing was unconstitutional because he was not allowed to tell the jury he would be ineligible for parole if given a life sentence, when the prosecution had argued he was a future danger to society. He also has argued that Virginia's 21-day rule - a provision in Virginia law that prevents death row inmates from presenting new evidence more than 21 days after their conviction - has barred him from presenting DNA evidence that proves his innocence.
BACKGROUND: In 1992, U.S. District Judge James Spencer held an evidentiary hearing in the case. Spencer rejected the DNA claim, but ordered a new sentencing on the future dangerousness issue. The decision was consistent with a 1994 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case called Simmons vs. South Carolina. But in a 90-page opinion released in September, a closely divided 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled. The Simmons rule was not retroactive, the court ruled. Because it was decided after O'Dell's sentencing, it did not apply to his case.
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