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

DATE: FRIDAY, September 22, 1995                   TAG: 9509220067
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MIGHT BE INNOCENT - KILL HIM ANYWAY?

FINALLY, VIRGINIA authorities have decided to look into affidavits that may create doubt about the guilt of a man scheduled to be executed in less than a week. The investigation needs to be as thorough as possible.

For a while there, it looked as though Virginia and North Carolina were more interested in passing the buck than confirming that the man Virginia is about to kill is a killer himself.

Dennis Stockton was convicted of murdering a young friend, 18-year-old Kenneth Arnder, in Patrick County in 1978. Both men were from Surry County, N.C., as is a third man, Randy G. Bowman, who testified against Stockton. Now, 17 years after the murder, three people reportedly claim that Bowman told them he was the killer: a former wife, a former friend, and Bowman's own son.

The son says Bowman detailed the crime in a journal.

These are, as the Patrick County commonwealth's attorney says, "uncorroborated statements." People can say anything, true or not. The statements alone, especially emerging so long after the fact, hardly prove that a Virginia jury convicted the wrong man.

Still, if three people who have had close relationships with the prosecution's key witness do come forward to accuse him - no matter how belatedly - it is only reasonable and fair to investigate what they are saying.

We at the newspaper suspect we're not the only ones weary of the claims of some among the death penalty's critics, who seem to find doubts about the guilt of virtually everyone whose execution approaches.

Our working assumptions are that depraved predators are being executed, and capital punishment of an innocent is an extremely rare event.

We oppose the death penalty for other reasons, and we are generally suspicious of supposedly new evidence that surfaces at the 11th hour.

Being skeptical, though, doesn't mean you don't check out such developments if they seem potentially serious. After all, the misguided point of killing a person legally for killing another illegally is ostensibly to send a warning to would-be killers, deterring them (this is really working well, isn't it?) and, more realistically, ridding society of a menace. If the state is to exact this ultimate punishment, it should have an overriding interest in ensuring that it is removing the right person.

For many citizens, who don't think of themselves as "the state," executions serve mainly to avenge heinous crimes. A life for a life. Surely even those who demand such an accounting, though, would not want to satisfy a societal blood lust by killing anyone, guilty or not.

Yet law enforcement officials sounded just this callously indifferent when, until Thursday, Virginia authorities were saying it was up to North Carolina authorities to look into the statements, and North Carolina authorities were saying, "Uh-uh. It's up to Virginia."

If the statements have not been investigated thoroughly - and the burden for this does fall logically to Virginia - before Stockton's Wednesday execution date, Gov. George Allen should issue a stay until reasonable doubt is put to rest.

by CNB