THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408040595
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: DURHAM LENGTH: Short : 38 lines
Attorneys for notorious killer Blanche Taylor Moore have turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the high court to determine whether prospective jurors can be asked whether they believe a death sentence is the only way to keep a convict away from the public.
The trial judge's refusal to allow Moore's attorneys to explain that the then-57-year-old woman would be in prison for at least 20 years violated her 8th and 14th Amendment rights, her attorneys said.
The state Supreme Court rejected that argument in a March ruling.
Gordon Widenhouse of the state Office of the Appellate Defender filed the appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court July 20.
Moore was convicted of murdering a boyfriend, Raymond Reid Sr., by poisoning him with arsenic. She was sentenced to death.
Reid became sick in January 1986 after eating some of Moore's homemade potato soup. He died 10 months later.
She wasn't charged until three years later when her second husband was diagnosed with arsenic poisoning. That prompted authorities to exhume the bodies of her first husband, James Taylor, her father and Reid.
Medical evidence showed Reid, Taylor and her second husband, the Rev. Dwight Moore, suffered from arsenic poisoning. Dwight Moore survived.
The case has been the subject of a television movie and a best-selling book.
KEYWORDS: MURDER
by CNB