ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, May 4, 1996                  TAG: 9605060052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: From The Washington Post and The Associated Press

INMATE DEATHS ON HOLD COURT TO REVIEW LIMIT ON EXECUTION APPEALS

The Supreme Court announced Friday it will review the constitutionality of a new law limiting federal appeals by state death row prisoners. The order is likely to halt most executions in the United States for at least two months.

The justices, who already had finished oral arguments for the term, moved a Georgia case ahead of others. Oral arguments are scheduled for June 3, apparently with the intent of reaching a decision before the court breaks for the summer.

At issue is a provision of the anti-terrorism law signed by President Clinton 10 days ago intended to reduce the number of court petitions that can be filed by condemned inmates. The Supreme Court's conservative majority, led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, has favored measures to shorten the appeals process in death penalty cases.

The challenge to the law was made by Ellis Wayne Felker, who had been scheduled to die Thursday night for the 1981 killing of a 19-year-old woman. He was convicted in 1983 of raping, sodomizing and murdering her.

Felker is challenging the part of the law that requires permission from a three-judge appeals panel before state inmates can file a second federal appeal on the constitutionality of their convictions.

That ban on second appeals is unconstitutional, Felker's attorney, Stephen C. Bayliss, said in court papers. Congress enacted the limits on federal appeals in response to complaints about inmates spending a decade or more on death row while pursuing legal strategies.

The court's four liberal-leaning justices - John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer - protested Friday that the court was taking up the matter too quickly, saying the issues ``should be undertaken with the utmost deliberation, rather than unseemly haste.''

While the immediate effect of Friday's order was to bring scheduled executions to a virtual halt, if the court upholds the law, the result will be fewer delays in executions because the challenged statute sets tight deadlines and limits the ability of a prisoner to win last-minute federal review.

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