Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102210385
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B/3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Leslie Taylor/Staff Writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Walter Correll Jr. filed a petition Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke asking that the warden of the Mecklenberg Correctional Center - where Correll is incarcerated - bring him before the court to determine if he has been denied his freedom without due process of the law.
The petition comes one month after Correll lost a U.S. Supreme Court appeal. The court let stand rulings that Correll received a fair trial and a proper sentence in Franklin County Circuit Court.
Correll, then 24, was convicted in 1986 of killing Charles Bousman Jr. of Wirtz on Aug. 10, 1985. Authorities said Correll and two teen-age accomplices attacked 24-year-old Bousman in Roanoke and, after knocking him unconscious, drove him to Smith Mountain Lake, where Bousman was fatally stabbed.
Franklin Circuit Court Judge B.A. Davis III found Correll guilty of capital murder in March 1986 and later sentenced the Roanoke man to death. His two accomplices were given prison terms for their roles in the slayings. John Marsholl Dalton and richard E. Reynolds were sentenced to 40 and 60 years, respectively.
One of Correll's claims is that his rights were violated when his statements to police were introduced as evidence. the statements were made after three days of interrogation and without a lawyer present, he claims.
Correll also claims that he had ineffective legal help; that he waived his right to a jury trial involuntarily; and that psychiatrists failed to conduct an adequate evaluation of him.
In 1987, Correll filed a similar petition in Franklin County Circuit Court. In January of last year, the court denied the petition.
Correll appealed that ruling in the state Supreme Court. That, too, was denied.
by CNB