THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507180266
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
A federal judge in Roanoke on Monday denied death-row inmate Dennis Stockton's plea for a review of his case, ruling that it did not meet the test of ``actual innocence'' necessary for a new trial.
This brings Stockton one step closer to an execution date, which he has said will probably be set for this summer or later this year.
In May, Stockton's lawyers also filed a plea for a final review of the case by the U.S. Supreme Court. After that, his last recourse to avoid the death chamber would be clemency from Gov. George F. Allen. Stockton has said he will choose to die by lethal injection.
Judge Jackson Kiser's ruling comes three months after key prosecution witness Randy G. Bowman, in a newspaper interview, said he did not hear Stockton agree to a murder-for-hire deal that led to Stockton's conviction and sent him to death row.
But Kiser wrote in his ruling, released Monday, that Stockton had not proved ``that it was more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in light of the new evidence.'' Kiser said that Bowman lacked credibility, but added that the jury was already aware of many of Bowman's credibility problems during the trial.
Stockton was convicted in 1983 for the 1978 murder of Kenneth Wayne Arnder, 18, whose body was found near Mount Airy, N.C. Arnder was shot in the head and his hands were hacked off above the wrists.
During the trial, Bowman testified that he heard Stockton accept $1,500 from another felon to kill Arnder over a soured drug deal. Prosecutors were able to seek the death penalty because Bowman claimed it was a contract killing. Bowman was the only witness who said he had heard the deal.
Prosecutors say Stockton killed Arnder in Patrick County, Va., then moved his body to North Carolina. No physical evidence linked Stockton to Arnder or the murder to Virginia, and no weapon was found. But Bowman testified that he was at the house of Tommy Lee McBride in Mount Airy when he heard Stockton agree to kill Arnder for $1,500.
But on April 20, Bowman told a reporter for The Virginian-Pilot that he never heard the deal take place.
``I don't know if they (McBride and Stockton) made a deal,'' Bowman said. ``I was in there to sell something. The subject came up . . . He (McBride) would like to have him dead, so I'm out of there. I've never said I heard - I didn't hear Stockton say, `I'm going to do it.' ''
Stockton's lawyers have said since 1990 that Stockton deserves a new hearing because the state failed to disclose evidence that could have helped Stockton during his trial, including details of an alleged deal that prosecutors made with Bowman in exchange for his testimony.
KEYWORDS: APPEAL DEATH ROW CAPITAL MURDER DENNIS STOCKTON by CNB