THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 1, 1995 TAG: 9506010017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
Did a Virginia death-row inmate have a handgun?
If so, how did he get it?
And what changes are needed to make death row secure?
The inmate, murderer Willie Lloyd Turner, was executed by lethal injection Thursday. An hour later at a motel, his lawyer, Walter J. Walvick, found a revolver and a dozen shells concealed in a typewriter to which Turner had had access from his death-row cell.
The next day, Gov. George F. Allen called the discovery of the gun ``an allegation'' and speculated that it was a ``stunt by the defense attorney.''
Following a 36-hour internal investigation, Ron Angelone, director of the Department of Corrections, issued a statement Saturday that allegations Turner had a gun were unfounded and raised ``questions about the possibility of an elaborate hoax.''
After a number of legislators screamed ``cover-up,'' Allen announced Tuesday that he had ordered the state police to conduct a ``thorough and independent'' investigation.
Perhaps the biggest embarrassment of Charles Robb's term as Virginia governor was four inmates' escape from death row in 1984. (Turner was one of the masterminds behind that escape, though he stayed in his cell.)
Now Allen, the tough-on-crime governor, has embarrassing questions to answer. He dismissed them at first, implying the inmate's attorney was a liar, but the clamor for answers was too loud - and it should have been.
It does not seem credible that a 52-year-old business attorney with no history of radicalism would risk his career to embarrass corrections officials in a case the attorney regretted becoming involved in. Walvick inherited the case several years ago from a colleague in his firm. Walvick has said he will take a lie-detector test to establish that he had no role in planting the gun.
Lie-detector tests are not entirely reliable, but presumably the test will show Walvick told the truth. Otherwise he wouldn't agree to take it.
The next order of business will be for the governor to apologize to Walvick.
Then someone has to discover how Turner got the handgun, a Smith & Wesson. Until officials discover how Turner got his gun, they won't know how to stop another death-row inmate from obtaining weapons the same way. There appear to be two possible sources for the gun: visitors or guards.
As Allen put it, ``If there are guns somehow getting . . . into a high-security or maximum-security facility, that's completely unacceptable.'' by CNB