Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990 TAG: 9004130356
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
Sweeney earlier had ruled that he would take the West German national's murder trial to another locality or bring a jury from somewhere else into Bedford. The trial of Soering, a former University of Virginia honors student accused of killing his girlfriend's parents in 1985, is scheduled to begin June 1.
"I have not made a decision as yet," Sweeney said in a motions hearing Thursday morning. "I think there are certain good reasons for not making that decision too early."
Sweeney did not elaborate on what those reasons were. Sweeney said a "rash of publicity" in the Bedford area over the slashing deaths of Nancy and Derek Haysom had prompted him in February to accept a defense motion not to let a Bedford jury hear the case.
By May 4, Sweeney said he will rule on another key issue: whether to allow Soering's 1986 statements to police to be entered as evidence.
That question, related to a series of interviews Soering had in a London police station, was the center of a four-day hearing in March. Prosecutor James Updike claimed Soering said what he did of his own free will, while the defense attorneys alleged that Soering was coerced.
Also on Thursday, Sweeney gave Updike and one of Soering's attorneys, William Cleaveland, three days to give him briefs on a tangled legal issue: whether a requirement that the defense supply to the prosecution any alibi Soering plans to present at the trial is dependent on the admissibility of Soering's 1986 statements to police.
Updike, who already has showed the defense evidence he plans to use, asked the judge to order the defense to do the same under a reciprocal discovery requirement. Among other things, the defense attorneys would be required to state any alibi they intend to present for Soering the weekend of March 30, 1985.
Updike said the defense already had been given time well beyond the original deadline for providing the information. "Out of a sense of fundamental fairness," they should provide it now, especially since he turned over his evidence 11 weeks ago, Updike pointed out.
But Cleaveland told the judge that the defense had no physical evidence or documents to turn over. And as far as an alibi, he said the defense had not determined what, if any, alibi would be used because it did not know what evidence it would be up against. The judge's future decision on admissibility of Soering's statements could affect that decision, Cleaveland suggested.
Demanding an alibi without knowing what the prosecution's total case would be was equivalent to asking "Mr. Soering to put his feet into concrete and stay there," Cleaveland said.
Sweeney had a problem with that logic, but agreed to hear case law from the attorneys before ruling on the matter.
"I'm having some difficulty understanding why the content of an alibi should depend on the admissibility of the evidence," the judge said. "It would seem to me that an alibi is an alibi . . . and not affected by the way a judge rules on the evidence."
During the hearing, Cleaveland indicated that Soering's parents intend to attend their son's June trial. At one point, Cleaveland asked the judge to make the decision on where the trial will be a few days earlier than originally planned so that Soering's parents could make plane reservations early enough to get a good rate.
Klaus Soering, who was vice consul at the West German Consulate in Detroit when his son was arrested, is now stationed in Mauritania. Up to now, no one in Jens Soering's family has attended pretrial hearings in Bedford.
by CNB