ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, May 21, 1996 TAG: 9605210119
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
Chief Justice William Rehnquist on Monday denied Virginia's request to allow the June 6 execution of Lem Tuggle to proceed, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office said.
Don Harrison said Rehnquist denied, without comment, a request to vacate a stay of execution issued last week by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeals court granted the stay to give Tuggle time to ask the Supreme Court to hear an appeal. Tuggle's lawyer, Timothy Kaine, has until July 29 to file his petition.
Tuggle is the sole survivor of a six-prisoner gang that pulled off the largest death-row escape in U.S. history in 1984. The inmates escaped from the Mecklenburg Correctional Center after posing as guards. All six were recaptured within a month, and the other five have been executed.
Tuggle was convicted of capital murder for the 1983 rape and killing of Jessie Geneva Havens, 52, in Smyth County. Havens and Tuggle had met at a dance. She was shot in the chest and thrown down an embankment.
The crime occurred four months after Tuggle was paroled from a sentence he was serving for the 1971 murder of a 17-year-old girl.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 32 linesby CNB