ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 13, 1996 TAG: 9601140011
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK AND DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITERS
NOTE: Below
A Roanoke man wrongfully convicted of rape would receive $750,000 as compensation for the 10 years he spent in prison, if a bill introduced this week in the General Assembly becomes law.
Edward Honaker was sentenced to three life sentences plus 24 years in 1985 after a woman told a Nelson County jury that he raped her on the Blue Ridge Parkway. But after DNA tests showed that Honaker could not have been the rapist, he was released from prison in October 1994.
Under a bill introduced Thursday by Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke, Honaker would receive $75,000 for each year he spent in prison before he was pardoned by Gov. George Allen.
"I hope it passes," Honaker said Friday. "I think I deserve compensation. It would give me a new lease on life.
"I'm prepared for the long haul and for the worst. Gov. Allen already said he didn't want to give me compensation when I was released."
Woodrum, chairman of the House Claims Committee, where the bill likely will go, said Honaker's request is the largest he is aware of.
"There's no amount of money in the world that would compensate someone for 10 years of their life, especially in the prime of their life," said Murray Janus, a Richmond lawyer who represents Honaker.
"It could be $10 million and it wouldn't be enough," Janus said. "But we tried to come up with an amount that was reasonable and had a chance of getting through."
Janus said Honaker has decided not to sue the state, opting instead to invoke a rarely used process in which the General Assembly can compensate someone who was wrongfully convicted. The last such case was in 1990, when lawmakers awarded $117,000 to a man who spent five years in prison for an Arlington murder that was later attributed to a serial killer.
In that case, the innocent man was raped and repeatedly abused while in prison.
In Honaker's case, Janus said the figure "is not an arbitrary amount." Other states have granted as much as $4 million compensation in similar cases, he said. Honaker also is asking that the state pay for job training and other counseling that he needed in making his readjustment to society.
Since his release from prison, Honaker has found a job installing heating and air-conditioning units in Roanoke.
Because the rape victim was adamant in her identification of Honaker as her assailant, and because DNA testing was not available at the time of the crime, Honaker would likely have had a difficult time proving a malicious prosecution lawsuit in court.
"It was not a malicious prosecution; it was a genuine human error," Janus said. The 1984 rape occurred while the victim and her boyfriend were on a camping trip to Crabtree Falls. They got lost, pulled to the side of the parkway and went to sleep in the car.
A man carrying a pistol abducted the 19-year-old woman after threatening to shoot her boyfriend. About five hours later, after a series of sexual assaults, he returned her to her car.
After spending nearly eight years in prison, Honaker sought help from Centurion Ministries Inc. of Princeton, N.J. The prisoner advocacy group arranged the initial DNA tests that ultimately led to Honaker's release.
In addition to ruling out a malicious prosecution lawsuit, Honaker also has decided against filing a different suit in federal court claiming he was deprived of his constitutional rights - a decision Janus said he hopes the General Assembly remembers when it takes up the compensation request.
Pam Catania, an attorney with the Division of Legislative Services who serves as counsel to the House Claims Committee, said there is no standard for determining how much is awarded in compensation cases. "It's purely subjective," she said.
Staff writer David M. Poole contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Honaker. color.by CNB