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

DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995                   TAG: 9510030097
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: AUSTIN, TEXAS                                 LENGTH: Short

JUDGE SETS HEARING ON EXECUTION APPEAL BY HENRY LEE LUCAS

Monday's scheduled execution of Henry Lee Lucas, who grew up in Montgomery County, Va., and is one of Texas's most notorious death row inmates, was canceled by a federal judge's order.

A January hearing has been set by U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings to consider arguments concerning Lucas' federal appeal.

Cummings, in his Friday order stopping the execution, noted the state didn't oppose the stay. ``This is [Lucas'] first time through'' the federal appellate process, said Ron Dusek, spokesman for Texas Attorney General Dan Morales. ``We want them [death row inmates] to have all their issues resolved. It is only after they begin filing duplicative and frivolous appeals that we oppose'' such motions.

Lucas, 59, was found guilty in 1984 in the strangling of an unidentified woman hitchhiker near Georgetown, about 30 miles north of Austin.

The case became known as ``Orange Socks'' for the only clothing on the woman's body when she was found in October 1979. She had been sexually assaulted.

It is Lucas' only death sentence, although he has received prison terms in 10 other slayings, most of them in Texas.

Lucas, who once confessed to as many as 600 murders across the country, has recanted his confessions and denied involvement in any of the slayings.

Lucas' lawyer, Danny Burns of Fort Worth, didn't immediately return a telephone call from The Associated Press. He earlier had said he expected a stay to be issued.

by CNB