PROSECUTOR: DON'T DELAY EXECUTION

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

DATE: THURSDAY, March 18, 1993                   TAG: 9303180244
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short
PROSECUTOR: DON'T DELAY EXECUTION
A man sentenced to die in Virginia's electric chair has said he was properly convicted and sentenced to die, and the execution should go forward without delay, prosecutors said Wednesday.
But Syvasky L. Poyner claims the electric chair violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and has asked that his execution today be postponed.
A federal appeals court rejected the electric chair argument and last week turned down Poyner's request for a stay. Poyner appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In responding to the Supreme Court filing, Assistant Attorney General Katherine B. Toone said Poyner has a long history of delaying tactics and is merely making a "transparent" bid to forestall execution.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' "determination that Poyner's . . . case is utterly frivolous makes his request for a stay of execution untenable," Toone wrote in a brief filed Wednesday.
The appeals court found that 13 states and many federal courts have recognized that electrocution is a constitutional form of execution, Toone said.
"He expressly conceded that he had been properly convicted of his crimes and had no complaint about the validity of his death sentences" in testimony before the Virginia Supreme Court on March 8, Toone wrote.
Poyner's attorney, Alexander Slaughter, did not respond to a request for comment.
Poyner, 36, confessed to robbing and killing five women during a 11-day crime spree in southeastern Virginia in 1984.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB