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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 12, 1993                   TAG: 9303120334
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

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DEATH-ROW INMATE ASKS FOR CLEMENCY

Syvasky L. Poyner, who is to be executed next Thursday for killing five women in 1984, has asked Gov. Douglas Wilder for clemency, the governor's office said Thursday.

"We have received a clemency petition and . . . we're proceeding on that," said Lisa Katz, a Wilder spokeswoman.

Poyner, 35, also has an appeal pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, said his attorney, Alex Slaughter.

The appeal challenges the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' refusal to consider whether the Virginia electric chair is a torture device that violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Poyner was convicted of killing five women during an 11-day robbery spree in Williamsburg, Newport News and Hampton.

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