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

DATE: THURSDAY, January 16, 1992                   TAG: 9201160326
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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LIBEL LAWSUIT DISMISSED

A judge has dismissed a libel lawsuit brought by a death-row inmate against the Roanoke Times & World-News, ruling that the man's extensive criminal record made him "libel proof."

In a $1.25 million lawsuit filed last year, Danny Lee King had claimed he was defamed and embarrassed by an article in which reporter Victoria Ratcliff quoted authorities as saying he was a suspect in the 1987 slaying of the brother of Craig County Sheriff B.B. McPherson.

King, who was convicted of capital murder last year in the death of Roanoke County real estate agent Carolyn Rogers, called the allegations "totally false." King has not been charged in connection with the McPherson case.

In a decision this week, Roanoke Circuit Judge Diane Strickland noted that King has been convicted of robbery, abduction, bigamy, petty larceny, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and firearms offenses.

"Those convictions when combined with his most recent capital murder and robbery convictions so diminish Mr. King's reputation as to render him libel proof as a matter of law,'` Strickland wrote in her opinion.

In granting a motion by newspaper attorneys to have the case dismissed by summary judgment, Strickland also wrote that "First Amendment considerations prevail over Mr. King's interest in his diminished reputation."

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