Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 19, 1993 TAG: 9301190190
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
COURT REFUSES EXECUTION STAY
The Virginia Supreme Court refused Monday to stop Charles Stamper's execution. His lawyers appealed to federal court.Stamper, who uses a wheelchair because of injuries sustained in a death row brawl five years ago, is scheduled to die in the electric chair tonight for the 1978 murders of three restaurant workers during a robbery.
He could be the first inmate taken to the electric chair in a wheelchair since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the resumption of capital punishment in 1976, said Leigh Dingerson, director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Stamper, 39, has said he can shuffle only a short distance without the wheelchair. He asked prison officials for permission to walk the last few feet to the electric chair with the help of leg braces and a walker.
"He maintains a sense of dignity even under these circumstances," said Stamper's lawyer, Dennis Dohnal. "He is a very proud person."
Dohnal said prison officials had not decided whether to grant Stamper's request.
"This execution will be a spectacle even those in favor of the death penalty will not soon forget," Dohnal said.
Stamper's execution originally was set for Oct. 28. His attorneys asked Gov. Douglas Wilder to grant clemency, saying Stamper no longer was a threat to society.
Wilder postponed the execution while doctors evaluated Stamper's condition. The governor lifted the stay on Jan. 9 and rescheduled the execution for today.
"We submitted irrefutable evidence he is a virtual paraplegic," Dohnal said.
But Wilder told reporters his medical team found Stamper's injuries were not as severe as he had been led to believe.
"They're not suggesting he's faking his injuries," Wilder said. "They did not find he's a paraplegic, and he does have use of his limbs with assistance."
Dohnal, however, said executing a person as disabled as Stamper seems uncivilized.
"The minute we begin to execute people like Stamper, I wonder if we're not crossing the line into something other than the society we'd like to be," he said.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.