Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994 TAG: 9406220143
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The nation's high court on Monday sent the cases of Dwayne Wright and Bobby Lee Ramdass back to the Virginia Supreme Court, which had upheld their convictions and death sentences in separate Fairfax County murders.
The state Supreme Court was told to reconsider their cases in light of a ruling last week in the case of a South Carolina death row inmate.
The state court either will order the trial judges to hold new sentencing hearings or uphold the death sentences again, said Don Harrison, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.
At least three other death row inmates in Virginia could get new sentencing hearings because of the ruling, said Barry Weinstein, a lawyer with the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center. He declined to name them.
Harrison agreed that most of Virginia's 46 death row inmates would not be affected. ``Every indication we're getting is it's a very small number,'' he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that jurors may not be fooled into thinking that a convicted killer eventually could go free if they do not sentence him or her to die. The court said defense attorneys have a right to tell the jury if an alternative sentence of life imprisonment would mean no parole.
The ruling affected some death row inmates in South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia because those three states refuse to tell juries if a defendant is ineligible for parole. Other states with the death penalty require that juries be informed if imprisonment without release is an alternative to execution.
Wright was sentenced to death for the 1989 robbery, attempted rape and murder of an Annandale woman. She was shot in the back as she ran away from Wright, who was 17 at the time.
Ramdass, 22, received his death sentence for killing a convenience store clerk during a September 1992 robbery.
by CNB