ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 15, 1995 TAG: 9512150086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
POOR REPRESENTATION by his lawyer violated his constitutional rights, says the murderer of his girlfriend's parents.
Jens Soering, who is serving two life sentences for the 1985 murders of his girlfriend's parents in Bedford County, filed a second appeal with the Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday.
Soering alleges, among other things, that his constitutional rights were violated by poor legal representation. It is the third appeal filed by the former University of Virginia honor student; the first was filed with the state Court of Appeals. It is the last appeal he can make in the state courts before turning to the federal courts.
"We are going to vigorously present all the possible grounds for having the conviction overturned," his attorney, Gail Marshall, said. "The hope is the courts will agree."
However, Marshall said it was unlikely the Supreme Court would grant Soering a retrial because it rejected his earlier appeal on similar grounds. She said Soering will immediately go to federal court if the state turns him down again.
Jailed at Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Buchanan County, Soering maintains his innocence in the killings of Derek and Nancy Haysom. In his autobiography published last month on the Internet, Soering reiterated his belief that their daughter committed the crime.
Soering says he falsely confessed to the murders to save her from the electric chair.
Elizabeth Haysom, who recently was turned down for parole, is serving a 90-year sentence at Goochland Correctional Center for Women for conspiring with Soering to kill her parents.
The main thrust of Soering's latest appeal is that his attorney, Rick Neaton, didn't interview key witnesses and failed to introduce key evidence during his 1990 murder trial.
In 1993, Neaton's law license was suspended for three years by the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board for false representation.
Reached by phone Thursday at his home in Port Charlotte, Fla., he said of Soering's claims: "It's up to the court to decide. It's a legal issue; it's not a matter of opinion, whether I did or didn't [provide adequate counsel].
"But I feel in my gut that I did."
A key piece of evidence at the trial was a bloody sockprint found at the murder scene that closely matched the size and shape of Soering's foot. Papers filed with the appeal say Neaton did not attempt to call state forensic experts to the stand who could have testified that the sockprint could have belonged to several people, including Elizabeth Haysom or one of her brothers.
Bedford County Sheriff's Investigator Ricky Gardner said Neaton was a good attorney who made police "dot our I's and cross our T's. He was very thorough."
Soering "wants to nit-pick," Gardner said. "He's sitting in prison, and all he's got is time on his hands. He wants people to forget the bloody sockprint, but he doesn't want to talk about the O-type blood [Soering's blood type] that was found at the scene."
Neaton said he made what he thought were the right decisions at the time of the trial. However, he said, he thinks Soering deserves a retrial because of other arguments brought up in the petition, including:
A confession made by Soering in England was obtained illegally. However, the state Court of Appeals ruled that Soering, a German citizen, had no Fifth Amendment rights when he was questioned.
Soering's constitutional rights were violated when Bedford County Circuit Judge William Sweeney refused to grant Soering a change of venue for the trial.
Sweeney also refused to recuse himself from the trial even though he had known the victims and made remarks before the trial that Marshall said indicate Sweeney had already decided Soering's guilt.
"He did not receive a fair trial," Neaton said. "But the odds of a conviction in a subsequent trial are great for him because he was unsuccessful of convincing even one person on a 12-person jury that his [confessions] were false."
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Jens Soering/Serving two life sentences for murder.by CNBcolor.