THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290501
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
The attorney general's office says convicted killer Jens Soering had adequate representation during his trial for the murders of his girlfriend's parents.
In a response to Soering's appeal filed Wednesday with the Virginia Supreme Court, Attorney General James S. Gilmore's office argued that Soering never showed that any alleged errors by his lawyer changed the outcome of the trial.
``Soering . . . must show some specific error or omission amounting to gross incompetence . . . and must show that, but for such error or omission, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of his trial would be different,'' John H. McLees Jr., an assistant attorney general, said in the state's response.
Soering claims his lawyer, Richard Neaton, suffered from mental problems during his trial and failed to attack key evidence against him.
Soering, 29, also alleges that Bedford County withheld evidence of other possible suspects in the case. McLees denied the allegation, but said it should be heard in Bedford Circuit Court.
No date has been set for oral arguments in Soering's appeal.
Soering was convicted in 1990 for the 1985 murders of his girlfriend's parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom, whose bodies were discovered in their Bedford County home. Both had been stabbed numerous times.
Soering, serving two life terms, now claims he confessed to the crimes to protect Elizabeth Haysom.
As the son of a German diplomat, Soering mistakenly thought his father's diplomatic immunity would somehow protect him from prosecution in Virginia. He said he thought he would be tried in Germany as a juvenile and receive only a short sentence.
Haysom, 31, pleaded guilty in 1987 to two counts of accessory to murder and is serving a 90-year sentence. She has denied participating in the murders.
In his latest appeal, filed in December, Soering also claims that the trial judge decided he was guilty before the trial started, that pretrial publicity might have prejudiced jurors against him and that his confessions were made under duress and after repeated requests for an attorney.
The state in February contended those three points should be dismissed because they had been addressed in previous appeals. by CNB