THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 27, 1994 TAG: 9406270071
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940627 LENGTH: Long
But the state has not been inclined to review claims of innocence. The law says that evidence found 21 days after conviction cannot be considered by the courts.
In his dissent to a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that innocent persons condemned in a fair trial have no constitutional right not to be executed, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote: ``The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder.''
One man, Dennis Waldon Stockton, bitterly states he soon will be ``murdered by the state'' without a fair hearing. The other, Roger Keith Coleman, never got that hearing and went to his grave proclaiming innocence.
These are their tales.
\ Dennis Stockton's story is one of two jurisdictions: Mount Airy, N.C., where he grew up and lived during infrequent periods out of jail. And Stuart, Va., due north in Patrick County, where in March 1983 a jury said he should die.
Mount Airy was Andy Griffith's home, but the Surry County mill town, dubbed ``Little Chicago'' for its criminal element, is a far cry from TV's Mayberry. Stuart, 40 miles away, prides itself on Virginia gentility. The home of Mary Sue Terry and Gerald Baliles, it is also a town steeped in politics.
{REST} In 1983, Stuart was the home of assistant prosecutor Anthony Giorno and sheriff's investigator Jay Gregory - both of whom ran for, and won, their respective offices eight months after convincing jurors that Stockton must die.
``Stuart is a different world than Mount Airy,'' said Tom Joyce, managing editor of The Mount Airy News. ``People there don't question authority. Giorno and Gregory are demagogues. If they say something's true, it must be.''
In September 1986, the tiny paper, which calls itself pro-capital punishment, said that justice bypassed Stockton.
The condemned man said that all along. He alleged that Giorno failed to disclose a deal-for-testimony with the prosecution's main witness, Randy Bowman; that Giorno knowingly allowed perjured testimony by Bowman; and that prosecutors failed to turn over a questionable statement by another key witness, Robert Gates.
Until 1990, Giorno denied this evidence existed. Then, seven years after the trial, he sent the evidence to Stockton's lawyers. In a letter dated Feb. 28, 1990, he wrote: ``I am not aware of any exculpatory evidence in this matter. In an abundance of caution, however, I am writing to disclose'' evidence which could have helped Stockton avoid a death sentence.
``It's repugnant to suggest that I would use tainted evidence that would lead an innocent man to death row,'' Giorno said recently. ``I am convinced I did nothing wrong.''
Stockton and his lawyers disagree. ``The commonwealth finally admitted, for the first time, that it had lied,'' they claimed in court papers. ``For the first time, the commonwealth revealed that it had knowingly elicited perjured testimony from an essential prosecution witness.''
\ Stockton, now 53, was no choirboy when he ran afoul of Virginia law. His record was peppered with burglary, forgery, weapons and drug charges. Then, in 1982, he was charged with the 1978 murder of Kenneth Wayne Arnder, 18, whose body was found near Mount Airy. Arnder was shot in the head and his hands were hacked off above the wrists. Arnder's mother said she last saw her son alive with Stockton. North Carolina officials investigated, but they never filed charges.
Then Virginia jumped in. According to the state, Stockton killed Arnder in a remote Patrick County picnic area, then moved his body to North Carolina. But no physical evidence linked Stockton to Arnder or the murder to Virginia. And no weapon was found.
The state, however, had Randy Bowman, a small-time felon who said he was present at a meeting during which Stockton agreed to kill Arnder for $1,500. Bowman testified that Tommy Lee McBride, another felon, wanted Arnder killed because of a soured drug deal. McBride, Stockton and others denied this.
The state's case lived and died with Bowman, who not only named the co-conspirators but placed the murder in Virginia. Prosecutors requested death because of Bowman's claim that it was a murder-for-hire case.
Then there was Robert Gates, who testified he was present in June 1979 when Stockton killed another man for ``running his mouth'' about Arnder's death. Gates said he watched Stockton shoot Ronnie Lee Tate three times, then helped him bury Tate between Mount Airy and Winston-Salem.
Stockton never denied killing Tate, but he said it was self-defense. He denied killing Arnder, and he said Tate once admitted to killing the teen.
Gates' testimony ``was critical'' in sending Stockton to death row, said Philip Gardner, Stockton's trial lawyer.
Almost immediately, questions arose about the fairness of the trial.
The first involved charges against McBride, who allegedly paid Stockton to kill the teen. McBride, now 55, was charged with conspiracy to commit capital murder on March 7, 1983, two weeks before Stockton's trial. His charge was deferred July 1. Virginia authorities said they would send the evidence to North Carolina and let prosecutors there try him. North Carolina authorities later said there was no ``credible'' evidence to try McBride.
McBride declined to comment recently. ``They arrested me on nothing, and they just nolle prossed the charges,'' he said. ``If I talk, they could reinstate the charges.''
A motion to dismiss McBride's charges alleged that his indictment ``was designed only to impeach'' McBride's credibility.
Gardner immediately filed for a new trial. A July 6, 1983, letter to the Patrick County trial judge said: ``The McBride cases have now been dismissed. This is a fact which I contend the prosecution knew from the inception. . . . (McBride's lawyers) have both told me emphatically . . . that it was understood shortly after they were appointed that they would not have to worry about the case or do any work to prepare for the case because the charges against McBride were going to be dropped.''
But the court did not consider this grounds for a new trial.
Even today, Gardner is outraged. ``I said to the Supreme Court that the indictment against Tommy McBride was a flat-out sham,'' he said. ``The commonwealth would have been in an untenable position without charging McBride, asking the jury to send one man to the electric chair while the man that allegedly hired him had never been charged.''
Next, Bowman allegedly recanted. In a 1984 civil case challenging Patrick County jail conditions, inmate Frank Cox testified he was in jail with Bowman when ``Randy did tell me . . . that he lied on Dennis, because he said, `I hate that son of a bitch.' '' Another inmate, Cleveland Martin, echoed this: ``He said he would . . . say anything for anybody if the money was right.''
In 1987, a federal judge vacated Stockton's death sentence when it was learned the 1983 jury was tainted. The owner of a diner told jurors eating lunch that Stockton should be executed. The judge gave Stockton a choice: Hold a new sentencing or settle for a life term.
Insisting he was innocent, Stockton chose the trial. But, under law, no new evidence on the murder could be presented. Stockton again was sentenced to die.
Stockton and his lawyers continued papering state and federal courts with appeals. Then, in 1989, the case took an unexpected turn.
That year, Stockton's lawyers took affidavits from two former Patrick County employees, deputy Clifford Boyd and former sheriff Jesse Williams. The two then repeated their tales to officials in the attorney general's office.
Both men said Randy Bowman was angry after Stockton's trial ``because promises allegedly made to him were not kept,'' records show. Boyd said Bowman was angry because he claimed ``Jay Gregory and the Surry County authorities had promised that he would be transferred to another penitentiary or would receive a sentence reduction.'' Bowman claimed both Gregory and Giorno promised he would not be sent back to North Carolina, Williams said.
Stockton's lawyers had made an end run around Giorno, whose hand was now forced. In February 1990, Giorno sent the letter saying: ``I am not aware of any promises made to Bowman other than that I told him I would endeavour to see that he would be transferred.''
Before this, Giorno had said there were no promises at all.
In the package accompanying Giorno's letter was a letter from Bowman, dated March 2, 1983 - two weeks before Stockton's trial. Bowman was writing from prison in North Carolina, where he served time for firearm and larceny charges. In it, he told Gregory: ``I'm writing you to let you know that I'm not going to court unless you can get this 6 or 7 months I've got left cutoff where I don't have to come back to prison.''
Gregory said recently he was not aware Giorno had sent the letter to Stockton's lawyers. He would not comment further. Giorno reiterated there never was a deal. ``People ask us for stuff all the time,'' he said. ``We say, `We can't promise you anything.' That's exactly what happened here.''
Transcripts of Bowman's testimony show that he denied any promises had been made and never mentioned the letter. Gardner asked Bowman: ``So you've helped yourself considerably by coming forward with this story by getting charges against you dropped, isn't that a fact?''
Before Bowman could answer, Giorno broke in: ``Objection. Objection to that. I think he's trying to lead the jury to believe that some charges were dropped and that's certainly not the case.''
But court records show otherwise. On Aug. 17, 1982, Bowman was taken from Surry County jail to Stuart to testify in Stockton's preliminary hearing. Seventeen days later, Surry County prosecutors dismissed a charge of obtaining stolen property against Bowman.
Court records show that Bowman also received favorable treatment after Stockton's trial. In 1981, he was sentenced to 4 1/2 years for several charges. But records show he was out on parole by November 1983. For the rest of the decade, Bowman was in and out of jail for repeat offenses with only minimal sentences.
Giorno said he had nothing to do with any of this.
One other document was included in Giorno's package: the statement Robert Gates made to Surry County officials in February 1980. In it, Gates gave a detailed account of Ronnie Tate's killing. But he failed when he tried leading police to the body. Later, Stockton showed police where Tate was buried.
According to Gates, Tate was murdered on the night of July 3, 1979. It was between midnight and 12:30 a.m. as they rode back from the killing, Gates said. Stockton was driving.
``He (Stockton) stopped at the Pinnacle exit'' off U.S. 52, Gates said in a statement to police. ``I remember that just as plain as day because there was a sandwich shop there and he stopped . . . and they was a couple police cars setting there in the parking lot that night and I remember I looked inside and I seen a black-headed woman running the cash register and Dennis had to write a check.''
The shop was the Pinnacle Sandwich Shop, which still stands today. It has been owned since May 14, 1967, by Charles Watson.
``We were never open that late,'' Watson recently told a reporter. ``Back then, we closed at 10 p.m. weeknights, 11 on weekends. We never had a black-haired woman at the cash register. . . . And July 3, we wouldn't have been open anyway. We always closed up for the Fourth of July.
``Nobody ever came and checked this story till now,'' Watson said. ``This is the first I ever heard of it. No Surry County sheriffs, nobody from Patrick County. This was a man's life. It's not that far from Mount Airy. You'd think they'd want to check everything out before they sent some guy to the chair.''
\ When Roger Keith Coleman was strapped into the electric chair on May 20, 1992, officials put his glasses on his face and he read this statement:
``An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight. When my innocence is proven, I hope Americans will realize the injustice of the death penalty as all other civilized countries have. My last words are to the woman I love. Love is eternal. My love for you will last forever . . . ''
A year-and-a-half later, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's report on innocent men sentenced to death singled Coleman out:
``The reviews afforded death row inmates on appeal . . . simply do not offer a meaningful opportunity to present claims of innocence,'' the report stated. ``Coleman's innocence was debated only in the news media, and considerable doubt concerning his guilt went with him to his execution.''
In March 1982, Coleman, a 33-year-old coal miner from Grundy, was sentenced to death for raping and murdering his 18-year-old sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy. Since Grundy police did not initially find any signs of forced entry into her house, they assumed McCoy opened the door to her killer. Her husband said his timid wife would only allow three people inside their Slate Creek cabin. This included Coleman, who had a previous record of sexual assault.
Soon, Coleman was charged. He maintained his innocence, but prosecutors told the jury there was no forced entry and picked at Coleman's alibi defense.
Yet, from the beginning, these crucial pieces of evidence were withheld from Coleman's court-appointed lawyers:
A police report written 13 days after the murder showed there was, indeed, ``a pressure mark which appeared to be a pry mark'' on the door's molding. The mark ``appeared to have been made with very little pressure.''
A police report, written six days after McCoy's death, indicated that a fingerprint was lifted from the door. But the print never was analyzed.
A timecard corroborating Coleman's alibi was not turned over.
Coleman's defense depended on a detailed accounting of his every move from 10 p.m. to 11:10 p.m., the time when the murder occurred. Prosecutor Tom Scott tried to show that 22 minutes of that time were unaccounted for: enough time, he said, for Coleman to park his truck, climb a hill, wade a creek, kill McCoy, then return to the truck.
Yet, during a 1985 hearing, ``the state trooper who timed the route admitted he had not timed the complete route and had gone a different and shorter route,'' records show. Thus, the state's time estimate was wrong.
A statement by McCoy's husband, taken the night of the murder, was also withheld, said minister James McCloskey, who investigated Coleman's case. In the statement, the husband said he and his wife had argued with Donald Ramey, a man later implicated by five Grundy residents in Wanda McCoy's killing. Ramey never was charged.
Scott, the prosecutor, disagreed that evidence was withheld. ``An affidavit signed by Terry Jordan, Coleman's trial lawyer, showed he knew about'' the timecard and the reports on the pry mark and fingerprint, Scott said. ``He just didn't think they were important. Whoever said the commonwealth withheld evidence made a bald-faced lie.''
Yet court records question Jordan's changing statements.
In an April 27, 1992, affidavit, Jordan said he was aware of the two police reports and the timecard, but he said he did not think they could help his client. He called the pry mark a ``light pressure mark'' and concluded it ``would have been laughable'' to use in Coleman's defense.
Yet in a Nov. 12, 1985, hearing, Jordan told a different story. He said he was not aware of any fingerprint and admitted it would have been important evidence. He said he never personally examined the door for pry marks; he did not admit knowledge of the pry-mark report, as he would later. He said he was aware of the timecard and believed it could have been used in the trial, but he never requested it from police.
Other unheard evidence, discovered after Coleman's conviction, also cast doubt on his guilt:
The testimony of inmate Roger Matney, who told jurors that Coleman confessed to the murder while they were in jail together. Yet in a 1991 affidavit, Matney's mother-in-law said she heard Matney say he lied. He said, ``If you use your head for something besides a hatrack, you can get out of a lot of prison time that you would have to pull,'' the mother-in-law said.
Court records show that in February 1982, the court released him from jail and suspended his four-year sentence.
The statements of six Grundy residents, who told McCloskey that Donald Ramey had confessed to killing Wanda McCoy. Teresa Horn said that when Ramey tried to rape her in 1987, he said he'd ``do her like he did that girl on Slate Creek'' if she didn't quit screaming. Kenneth Clevinger corroborated her statement. During a party, Ramey told Harold Smith and others that he ``had a hand in the incident at Slate Creek,'' McCloskey said.
Four women, including Horn, told McCloskey they had been sexually assaulted by Ramey during the 1980s. Yet Ramey never was charged.
In 1992, Horn voiced her charges on a Roanoke TV show. The next day she was found dead. An autopsy later said she died of a drug overdose.
Other unanswered questions remained. Why, in such a grizzly murder, did only three drops of blood wind up on Coleman's trousers? Why, when Coleman's clothes were covered with coal dust, was no coal dust found at the scene? Why was there dirt on Wanda McCoy's hands, arms and fingernails if the entire attack happened inside?
Yet none of this new evidence was reviewed by a court.
Notwithstanding this, DNA tests showed Coleman was the killer, said Scott, the prosecutor. According to expert testimony, 10 percent of the population had B-type blood, as did Coleman and the killer. About 8.5 percent are secretors, meaning their blood type can be detected from body fluids.
As his execution neared, Coleman's attorneys fought for and won a DNA analysis of the semen taken from McCoy's body. Yet their own expert concluded that the alleles - genetic markers - of the rapist matched Coleman's, a match the expert said is found in only 2 percent of the population. Coleman's defenders could never dispute these results, which ultimately swayed Gov. L. Douglas Wilder to deny Coleman's clemency plea.
``With those results, I would have retried the case if I had to,'' Scott said. ``I would have been a national folk hero. I would have loved to retry him just to prove to all those do-gooders that we had the right man all along.''
But not everyone in Grundy is convinced. Susan Van Dyke's husband, Philip, was the man whose withheld timecard could have been used in Coleman's defense. Before Coleman was executed, she publicly said she thought Coleman was being railroaded. Shortly thereafter, she received a death threat.
``Somebody called and said I needed to shut my mouth or my body would be the next they found beside a cabin in the woods,'' Van Dyke recently said.
``Roger was innocent as could be,'' she said. ``Not many people talk about it now in Grundy, but nobody forgets. If you're poor, like Roger, once the court says you're guilty . . . it never admits it was wrong. You know the right people, get a good lawyer, you get away with murder.
``That's what we learned from Roger Coleman,'' Susan Van Dyke said softly. ``It makes me sick. Some of us still hope the truth will come out someday. But we're not holding our breath. Not here in Grundy.''
{KEYWORDS} DEATH ROW VIRGINIA
by CNB