Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995 TAG: 9508250091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
A Smyth County judge has scheduled an Oct. 19 execution date for a man who says he wants to die for beating his family of three to death with a crowbar.
Melissa Friedman, a Roanoke lawyer who represents Mickey W. Davidson, said the execution was set Thursday during a telephone conference call with the judge, the Smyth County commonwealth's attorney and an assistant state attorney general.
Davidson has had execution dates set twice before after saying he wanted to die, only to change his mind and restart his appeals.
But Davidson says this time he plans to go through with his death wish, and Friedman said she and co-counsel Tony Anderson will not file any more appeals.
Davidson, 38, pleaded guilty to killing his wife, Doris Davidson, and his two teen-age stepdaughters, Mamie and Tammy Clatterbuck, as they were packing to leave his Saltville home in 1990.
In the past few months, Davidson has expressed frustration at how long it is taking for the state to execute him; he also staged a hunger strike from his death row cell at Mecklenburg Correctional Center.
But in an Aug. 16 letter to The Roanoke Times, Davidson said he had ended the nine-day hunger strike after learning that an execution date would soon be set. "I see no reason for me to inflict further unnecessary punishment upon myself, especially when I do not believe in suicide," Davidson wrote.
by CNB