THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Tuesday, May 23, 1995                  TAG: 9505230243
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   48 lines

JUDGE REFUSES TO STAY EXECUTION OF KILLER ON DEATH ROW 15 YEARS

An Alexandria federal judge on Monday refused to stay the execution of longtime death row inmate Willie Lloyd Turner, ruling that the 15 years Turner has spent waiting to be executed do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

``Society has decided to err on the side of abundant caution in affording condemned prisoners time to exhaust their appeals,'' U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris wrote in a 14-page opinion.

``It would be a strange twist of logic to hold that, by bending over backwards to protect (Turner's) due process rights . . . (Turner) has been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.''

Turner, 49, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday night for the 1978 shotgun murder of Franklin jewelry store owner William J. ``Jack'' Smith Jr.

Since then, he has had one trial, two sentencings and four execution dates. In 1985, he came within four hours of the electric chair before the courts granted a last-minute stay.

Turner had exhausted his appeals in February when U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a memorandum to a Supreme Court decision declining to hear a Texas case. In that case, inmate Clarence Allen Lackey claimed that his 17 years on death row violated the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. That issue, Stevens wrote, was one of ``importance and novelty'' and should be considered by lower courts.

Encouraged by Stevens' remarks, Turner filed his petitions in late April, combining his Eighth Amendment claim with one documenting unconstitutionally inhumane conditions in the prisons where he has been held.

But Cacheris on Monday distinguished Turner's case from Lackey's, noting that Texas took 12 years to rule on Lackey's appeals while, in Turner's case, the state caused no similar delay.

Cacheris also dismissed Turner's claim about unconstitutional conditions, saying he had no jurisdiction to consider it. None of Turner's claims belongs in federal court, wrote the judge.

Turner's best bet, said Cacheris, is a petition for clemency to Virginia Gov. George F. Allen.

KEYWORDS: DEATH ROW CAPITAL PUNISHMENT MURDER by CNB