BRIEFS MUST BE FILED BEFORE SAVINO RULING

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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 22, 1992                   TAG: 9202220406
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
BRIEFS MUST BE FILED BEFORE SAVINO RULING
Lawyers for death row prisoner Joseph John Savino and for the state will submit legal briefs before a judge rules on Savino's request for a new trial.
In a two-day hearing which ended Friday, Savino's current attorney, Gerald Zerkin, questioned the effectiveness of Savino's defense lawyers during his 1989 trial for the murder of Thos "Tom" McWaters.
Savino, 32, had pleaded guilty to capital murder for beating, stabbing and then robbing McWaters, who Savino said was his homosexual lover.
Following the guilty plea, Bedford Circuit Court Judge William Sweeney sentenced Savino to die.
Savino had testified Thursday that his lawyers, Hugh Jones and Grady Donaldson of Lynchburg, led him to believe that Sweeney would not choose the more severe of the life-or-death sentencing options.
Sweeney will also be the one to rule on the habeas petition once Zerkin and Assistant Attorney General Eugene Murphy file legal briefs on the issue.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB