
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994                    TAG: 9406180203 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A8    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE 
DATELINE: 940618                                 LENGTH: WASHINGTON

DEFENSE MAY TELL JURY THAT LIFE MEANS NO PAROLE, COURT SAYS \

{LEAD} Expanding the concept of truth in sentencing, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that defense lawyers seeking to prevent a death penalty generally have a right to inform the jury when the alternative of ``life imprisonment'' really means no parole.

The 7-2 ruling casts doubt on the constitutionality of some death sentences in three states - Virginia, Pennsylvania and South Carolina - and is expected to provoke new legal challenges to death penalties in Texas, which leads all states in Death Row population.

{REST} In reversing a death sentence in a brutal South Carolina murder case, the justices added another constitutional protection to a long list of safeguards against imposing the death penalty unfairly.

The new safeguard amounts to this: Whenever life imprisonment without parole is the only alternative to a death penalty, and the prosecutor argues that a convicted murderer is so dangerous to society that he must be executed, the defense lawyer must be allowed to inform the jury that the defendant isn't eligible for parole.

Justice David H. Souter argued that the trial judge be required to convey the truth to the jury, but failed to muster a majority.

Based on the new constitutional requirement, the justices ordered a new sentencing trial for Death Row inmate Jonathan Dale Simmons, who beat and sexually assaulted three elderly women - including his own grandmother - and then beat a fourth to death in her home in Columbia, S.C., in 1990.

Under South Carolina law, Simmons was ineligible for parole. But neither his lawyer nor the judge was allowed to inform the jury of that fact.

The prosecutor argued that Simmons would remain a threat to society if not put to death. The defense lawyer replied that Simmons' future dangerousness was limited to elderly women, so there was no reason to expect him to be violent in prison.

While deliberating, the jury sent a note to the judge inquiring: ``Does the imposition of a life sentence carry with it the possibility of parole?''

Replied the judge: ``You are instructed not to consider parole or parole eligibility in reaching your verdict . . . The terms life imprisonment and death sentence are to be understood in their plain and ordinary meaning.''

Twenty-five minutes later, the jury condemned Simmons to death.

{KEYWORDS} U.S. SUPREME COURT RULING DEATH PENALTY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT PAROLE by CNB