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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 15, 1992                   TAG: 9201150337
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

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CONVICT CHALLENGES ELECTRIC CHAIR

A federal judge has agreed to consider whether Virginia's form of capital punishment, the electric chair, is cruel and inhumane, and thus unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Robert Merhige will take up the matter Friday in a hearing for condemned killer Herbert Bassette Jr., 46.

Bassette is trying to avoid a Jan. 23 execution.

Bassette got the death penalty for the 1979 robbery and murder of a 16-year-old boy in Henrico County, a crime his attorneys say he did not commit.

The attorneys also plan to present new evidence in a state court to ask for a new trial, and on Tuesday petitioned Gov. Douglas Wilder to spare Bassette's life. - Landmark News Service

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