Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 31, 1994 TAG: 9408310049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Gov. George Allen has been learning about vasectomies. And DNA. And the peculiar genetics of hair.
While the governor publicly rallies support for his plan to abolish parole, he's quietly and, he says, methodically weighing whether to let one prisoner go free - Edward Honaker, the Roanoke man who has served 10 years in prison for a rape he says he didn't commit.
It's been more than two months since Honaker's case first came to the governor's - and the public's - attention. For the New Jersey-based prison ministry that has championed Honaker and arranged for the DNA test that at first glance appeared to rule him out as the rapist, that's way too long.
Last week, Centurion Ministries held a news conference at the state Capitol to blast Allen for engaging in a "desperate, last-ditch effort to maintain the false conviction of an innocent man" by trying to find other evidence.
"Politics is a factor," Executive Director Jim McCloskey charged, because a "law-and-order" governor like Allen isn't inclined to look for reasons to grant clemency.
The governor's office responded much the same way it has responded throughout the case - to say simply the governor is "reviewing" the case.
What's there to review? the ministry demanded.
But Allen - in the only interview he has granted on the subject - presents himself as a detail-oriented chief executive determined to master the science of a case that relies heavily on DNA testing.
Allen said he found Honaker's petition for clemency from his sentence of three life terms plus 34 years to be "well written."
"If I went on just the petition, heck yeah, it's clear," Allen said, "but that wasn't the whole story."
Instead, Allen says he's trying to find out what the "whole story" is. He has instructed state police to study the evidence in the case - and even suggested several angles for them to pursue.
For instance, Allen says he personally instructed state police to interview the victim - a Newport News woman who was sleeping with her boyfriend in a car on a Blue Ridge Parkway overlook in Nelson County in 1984 when she was attacked .
"I thought it was very important to talk to the victim of the crime - after all, she was the one who was raped and identified Mr. Honaker - to see if there's something they can find talking to her, to see if she's firm in her identification," Allen said.
Indeed, the interview with state police did produce additional information - the woman's admission that, at the time of the rape, she had another lover unbeknown to her boyfriend.
At Allen's request, the state's chief forensic scientist also tested the "secret lover's" DNA; his genetic tests matched the evidence from the 1984 rape.
But forensic chief Paul Ferrara said it was possible that this secret lover's sperm could have "masked" Honaker's semen in the test, meaning he wasn't able to use the DNA tests to rule out Honaker as the rapist.
"Obviously, this makes it more complicated," Allen said. "If somehow the evidence was clear from the forensic folks, `He clearly did not do it, this is someone else, not him,' it would be a much easier decision."
In the meantime, Allen said he has taken a lead in suggesting other avenues of inquiry, which have proved to be dead ends.
``There was a piece of hair found; I said `Check that out, see if you can run any DNA tests on that,''' he said. ``I was thinking of the Anastasia case in Charlottesville,'' in which a woman claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, the daughter of Russia's last czar.
"Apparently, that's nowhere as good as the sort of identification you can make with fluids, be it blood, semen or other fluids," Allen said. "That ended up being not a good way of doing it."
State police also investigated whether Honaker's vasectomy was done correctly, Allen said. If the vasectomy worked, Honaker could not produce sperm.
"It took me awhile to figure out what a vasectomy does," Allen said.
The forensic scientist's report was delivered to Allen last week. The governor, who since then has been busy touring the state to promote his plan to abolish parole and also put in an appearance at the Southern Governors' Association conference in Nashville, Tenn., said he needs to "try to figure it all out and learn a few things about science" before he makes a decision.
"I'm going to read through these reports in greater detail than I have had an opportunity to," he said.
"The actual petition, you could read at one sitting; getting through all these different scientific and biological things is something you have to get up to speed on, not something I'm familiar with, and then ask experts what does that mean. I want to fully understand what the most recent report states."
To do that, Allen said, he'll "talk it over" with his staff lawyer, Frank Atkinson; "some of the people in the state police who are familiar with these sort of things"; and Attorney General Jim Gilmore, a former prosecutor.
Allen dismissed Centurion Ministry's charge that his get-tough-on-crime stand makes it difficult for him to release Honaker.
"If someone is clearly innocent, they should not be spending time in prison and have to go through all sorts of hearings," Allen said. "If I feel I should intervene, short-circuit this, it's because I think he didn't commit the crime or there is sufficient evidence he did not do it, and I'll feel good about it."
But in this case, Allen said, with the latest wrinkle in the DNA testing, "the evidence is unclear."
In the end, though, the governor's decision apparently will have less to do with the evidence than with the law.
As a matter of principle, Allen has set a high threshold for intervening - a threshold he says has been consistent with what previous governors have done.
"Regardless of whether it's this sort of clemency petition, or hundreds of others, have [those seeking clemency] exhausted all their legal remedies?" Allen said.
He cites a separation-of-powers argument that the executive should intervene in judicial proceedings only as a "court of last resort."
"Am I the only way they'll be able to seek justice?" Allen asks. "Have all the judicial remedies been exhausted?"
That's a point on which he and Honaker's champions disagree. Allen believes Honaker still has legal options available; Centurion Ministries says they're difficult ones to exercise, though.
And as of Tuesday, the word from the governor's office was the same as it has always been: There's no formal timetable for making a decision, and Allen is still reviewing the case.
by CNB