Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509210055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A motion to stay Tuggle's execution remained before the U.S. Supreme Court, which had not announced a ruling late Wednesday.
The possibility that the justices of the nation's highest court would grant a stay of execution remained doubtful, according to Tuggle's lawyer, Timothy Kaine.
Tuggle, 43, was expecting "the worst," Kaine said. "He's hopeful that the stay might happen. But he's preparing to be executed."
Tuggle's walk to the death chamber would initiate a string of executions by the state, which is scheduled to put to death nine prisoners by mid-December. If accomplished, it would be the highest number of executions in one year since Virginia reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
The next death-row inmate set for execution is Dennis Stockton, who is scheduled for the Death House on Wednesday. Stockton was convicted of murdering an 18-year-old Patrick County man and dumping his body in Mount Airy, N.C. The victim had been shot in the head and his hands had been chopped off.
Tuggle's execution would put an end to a decade of legal battles and escapades by the burly man with a tattoo of "Born to Die" on his arm. It began in 1971 when Smyth County authorities charged Tuggle with strangling Shirley Mullins to death.
At his trial, Tuggle testified that he blacked out and had no memory of what happened to the 17-year-old girl. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison. A psychiatrist testified that there was a "high probability" Tuggle would kill again if freed.
In 1983, Tuggle was paroled. After less than four months of freedom, he raped and murdered Jessie Geneva Havens, a 52-year-old woman from Marion. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1984.
During his first year at Mecklenburg Correctional Center, he and five other inmates successfully staged the largest death-row escape in U.S. history. Tuggle was recaptured nine days later in Vermont.
His first words to a Vermont state trooper were, "I'm Lem, and I'm wanted in Virginia."
Tuggle is the final surviving participant. The other five men have been executed.
Last year, a federal judge in Roanoke overturned Tuggle's conviction, saying he deserved a new trial. That ruling made Tuggle the first death-row inmate in Virginia to get a conviction overturned in the federal court system since 1977.
But a federal appeals court overruled that decision, putting Tuggle back on death row.
Monday, Tuggle's lawyers filed in the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution. Kaine said the main issue rested on the state's concession a decade ago that Tuggle was entitled to a new sentencing hearing.
In 1985, the state attorney general's office said that Tuggle deserved a new hearing because he was not afforded a state-paid psychiatrist during his trial.
Barring a last-minute stay, Tuggle will be led into the Death House at Greensville Correctional Center at 9 tonight to die.
by CNB