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

DATE: THURSDAY, January 19, 1995                   TAG: 9501190108
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Short

1ST LETHAL INJECTION SCHEDULED TUESDAY

The Virginia Supreme Court refused Wednesday to hear the appeal of a death row inmate who is scheduled to be executed Tuesday, the first Virginia prisoner to die by lethal injection.

Dana Ray Edmonds of Danville was sentenced to death for smashing a grocer's head with a brick and cutting his throat during a 1983 robbery.

Donald R. Lee Jr., the acting director of the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, said he and Edmonds' other attorneys will file an appeal petition in federal court in Roanoke.

Attorneys last week filed a clemency request with Gov. George Allen. Lee said the request was based on a recent polygraph test that showed Edmonds acted in self-defense when the grocer pulled out a gun.

Allen has not responded to the request.

A law allowing death-row inmates to choose lethal injection instead of the electric chair went into effect Jan.1. Lee said Edmonds has chosen lethal injection.

- Associated Press

by CNB