Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102210417
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WARREN FISKE LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The action came hours after Giarratano accepted Gov. Douglas Wilder's unprecedented offer to commute his death sentence to life in prison with a chance for parole in 2004. As part of that offer, Wilder said Terry was free to seek a retrial should Giarratano make such a request.
Giarratano, 33, signed commutation papers and asked for a new trial Wednesday morning. The former Norfolk waterman said he was overcome by a drug addiction and does not remember if he killed the two women with whom he shared an apartment.
"The most equitable relief for the commonwealth and myself is to find out if I'm guilty," Giarratano told reporters at the state Penitentiary. "I need to know for my own peace of mind and the public has a right to know.
"In my heart, I don't believe I did it," Giarratano added. "They were my friends."
But Terry expressed no sympathy for Giarratano, whose case has become a national and international cause for death penalty opponents.
"Like Governor Wilder, I am intimately familiar with the facts of the case, and I am convinced that Mr. Giarratano committed the crimes of which he stands convicted," she said in a written statement. "He is not entitled to a new trial and I shall initiate no further legal proceedings."
Terry added that in 12 years of appeals from Giarratano's 1979 conviction "his lawyers were unable to convince any state or federal court that there was a defect in [his] trial, or that there was evidence that would warrant a new trial."
"A child was raped and killed and a mother was left bleeding to death on the floor," Terry said in an interview. "It wasn't until nine years after this tragedy that Joe Giarratano raised any question whether he committed the murder at all."
Giarratano's supporters pledged to continue pressuring Terry to change her mind. Should that fail, they said Wilder's clemency offer leaves Giarratano free to request a retrial from Terry's successor. Her term expires in 1994.
"Of course we're a little disappointed, but we're relieved that he's still alive," said Bart Stapert, assistant director of the Virginia Coalition on Jails and Prisons, a prisoner advocacy group.
Stapert said the coalition remains hopeful Giarratano will get a new trial. "The feeling here is that we were able to move Wilder and a year ago that didn't seem possible," he said. Giarratano had been scheduled to die Friday night.
A happy Giarratano, in an interview before Terry's decision was announced, said, "I'd like to give the governor a hug." He will have no regrets about accepting clemency, even if he never gets a new trial, he said.
"I'm not going to the electric chair. I'll just be going back to prison," he said.
Giarratano confessed several times in 1979 to the deaths of of Barbara "Toni" Kline, 44, who had been stabbed repeatedly, and her daughter, Michelle Kline, 15, who had been strangled and apparently raped.
Giarratano now says his admissions were the faulty product of a drug addiction which was causing him to black out. He says he was in the apartment the night of the slayings and awoke the next morning to find the bodies but does not recall committing the murders. His attorneys contend there is ample evidence that he did not commit them.
"If the attorney general is so convinced of Joe Giarratano's guilt, then it may have been well for her to provide proof to a skeptical public by providing a new trial," said Joseph Elton, executive director of the state GOP. "Closing the door on a new trial was the easiest political decision for her to make."
Terry acknowledged that there could be political repercussions from her decision. Giarratano has drawn support from a wide array of liberals and conservatives.
by CNB