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

DATE: TUESDAY, May 18, 1993                   TAG: 9305180297
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HIGH COURT REJECTS CLAIM OF DEAD MAN

Almost two months after Syvasky Poyner died in Virginia's electric chair, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected his claim that he was wrongfully denied an opportunity to challenge electrocution as a cruel means of execution.

Poyner killed five women in 1984 during an 11-day crime spree in Hampton, Newport News and Williamsburg.

He had tried to spare himself and all other death row inmates in Virginia from death in the electric chair.

Although Poyner lost his case posthumously, three justices sent a clear message to other Virginia death row inmates that the door remained open for them to mount similar challenges.

Justices Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens signed on to Justice David Souter's opinion, which had some strong words for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' role in Poyner's case.

Poyner filed his case first in U.S. District Court in Richmond seeking a ruling that Virginia's method of carrying out capital sentences violated the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

He then asked the judge to allow that the pre-execution testing of the electric chair be videotaped, that the actual execution of another inmate be videotaped, and that a neuropathologist be allowed to study the autopsy of an electrocuted inmate.

The district court denied the request for taping the execution, but granted the other two requests.

The state appealed the approved requests to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The appeals court denied the requests, then told the district court to throw out the entire case.

Souter supported Poyner's claim that the appeals court lacked the authority to rule on the entire case since the case itself had not reached that court.

"To begin with, it is clear that the court of appeals acted without subject-matter jurisdiction," Souter said.

"Because of the procedure used by the court of appeals, the members of the class [all other death row inmates] will not be precluded . . . from bringing another action in the district court raising the same constitutional challenge," Souter wrote.

Poyner was executed March 18 after the high court rejected his request for a stay of execution.

by CNB