ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996 TAG: 9606210059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
The Virginia Supreme Court ordered a lower court to determine whether prosecutors withheld evidence that someone other than Jens Soering could have killed his girlfriend's parents.
The court rejected several other claims raised by Soering, including that he had ineffective legal representation during his trial for the 1985 stabbing deaths of Derek and Nancy Haysom.
Soering, the son of a German diplomat, was convicted in 1990 of murdering the Haysoms in their Bedford County home. He was sentenced to two life terms.
The victims' daughter, Soering's ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, pleaded guilty in 1987 to two counts of accessory to murder and is serving a 90-year sentence. She has denied participating in the murders.
In a two-page order made public Thursday, the Supreme Court directed Bedford County Circuit Court to consider the claim of withheld evidence. No hearing date has been set.
The court's action was also sought by the state attorney general's office. In court papers filed earlier, the attorney general said a fact-finding hearing should be conducted in the lower court ``in order to make a complete record and to provide for disposition of this claim.''
Soering's attorney, Gail Marshall of Rapidan, said she was disappointed but not surprised that the other claims were dismissed. Soering alleged that his trial attorney, Richard Neaton, did not interview key witnesses and failed to introduce important evidence.
He also claimed that the judge decided he was guilty before the trial started, that pretrial publicity might have prejudiced jurors against him, and that his confessions were made under duress and after repeated requests for an attorney.
In an autobiography published this year on the Internet, Soering said he falsely confessed to the murders to save Haysom from the electric chair. He said he thought his father's diplomatic immunity would shield him.
Soering's last hope for getting his convictions overturned at the state level now rides on his contention that prosecutors failed to tell defense attorneys that there were other suspects.
``I will call as witnesses people who told me there were pieces of evidence of other suspects in the area who had in their possession a knife similar to the one used in these slayings,'' Marshall said.
She also said she would ask that a judge be brought in from outside the county since some of Soering's previous claims centered on the conduct of Bedford County Circuit Judge William Sweeney.
If the final state appeal fails, Marshall said, she will begin appeals at the federal level.
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