THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 16, 1995 TAG: 9505160347
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: METRO BRIEFS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 26 lines
The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday dismissed without comment a petition by condemned inmate Willie Lloyd Turner to take him off death row and commute his sentence to life in prison.
Turner, who is scheduled to be executed May 25 for the 1978 murder of a Franklin jewelry store owner, has been on death row 15 years - longer than anyone else in the history of Virginia's modern-day death penalty. He has been taken to the death house to await his execution three times, and was once granted a stay four hours before he was to be executed.
To execute him after so many years of inhumane treatment, Turner argued in his petition to the state's high court, would violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
KEYWORDS: SUPREME COURT DEATH ROW by CNB