ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 20, 1996 TAG: 9612200044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA LAFAY STAFF WRITER
BUT THE DECISION will deal only with the validity of his death sentence. His claim of innocence will not be reviewed.
The U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday it will consider the case of convicted Virginia Beach killer Joseph Roger O'Dell III's claim that his sentencing was unfair.
The order made clear that the court will review only the validity of O'Dell's death sentence. Its review will not include his claim of innocence based on DNA tests performed after his trial.
Justice Antonin Scalia said in a brief written statement that he had voted against postponing O'Dell's execution and also opposed granting his formal appeal. He noted the limited scope of the court's review.
``I think it is important that the issue has nothing to do with O'Dell's claimed innocence of his crime," Scalia said. "That claim has been rejected by every one of the 13 court of appeals judges who have heard this case."
The decision came two days after the court granted a stay of execution. O'Dell, 55, had been scheduled to die in Virginia's electric chair Wednesday night for the murder of Helen Schartner, 44, whose body was found in a muddy field across the highway from the County Line Lounge on Feb. 6, 1985. She had been raped, pistol-whipped and strangled. O'Dell was arrested two days later, after his girlfriend read a newspaper account of the crime, suspected O'Dell and called police.
O'Dell was convicted of capital murder, rape, abduction and sodomy in September 1986 and sentenced to death by a Virginia Beach jury.
The evidence against him included enzyme tests of dried blood taken from his shirt, jacket and car.
All of the blood tested contained enzyme markers consistent with Schartner's blood, a prosecution expert testified. Sperm found in Schartner's body also was consistent with O'Dell's, the expert said.
O'Dell has argued in appeals that the state's blood evidence was discredited by DNA tests he commissioned in 1989. He has also claimed that his sentencing was unfair because he was not permitted to tell the jury he would be ineligible for parole if sentenced to life.
In 1994, eight years after O'Dell's conviction, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Simmons vs. South Carolina that criminal defendants have the right to counteract prosecution claims of future dangerousness with information about their ineligibility for parole. But federal courts are divided on whether the decision is retroactive. That is the question the Supreme Court will consider in O'Dell's case.
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