THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, July 31, 1995                  TAG: 9507280028
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   48 lines

AFTER 12-YEAR WAIT, WHAT'S THE HURRY?: RUSHING TO EXECUTION

Fortunately, a judge has denied a request that Dennis Stockton be executed 12 days before the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to review his case.

Patrick County Commonwealth's Attorney Alan H. Black, in a motion filed July 11, had asked that Stockton be executed Sept. 14, even though the Supreme Court was scheduled to look at Stockton's case Sept. 26.

On Wednesday, Stuart Circuit Judge Charles Stone set Stockton's execution for Sept. 27.

To have executed Stockton before his scheduled appeals date would have been uncivilized.

Anthony F. King, an attorney for Stockton, asked a good question: ``Why are they in such a hurry that they can't wait two or three weeks for a final decision from the highest court?''

Stockton has lived on death row for a dozen years, after being convicted in 1983 of the 1978 murder-for-hire of Kenneth Arnder, who had been shot between the eyes and dumped in North Carolina with his hands cut off.

Rushing Stockton's execution ahead of an appeals date seems doubly uncivilized because some doubt remains about his guilt. Stockton contends in his appeal that prosecutors illegally hid evidence showing they cut a deal with a key witness and knew the witness lied in his testimony.

The witness, Randy Bowman of Mount Airy, N.C., testified at Stockton's trial that he heard Stockton accept a $1,500 contract from a drug dealer to kill Arnder. Then this past April Bowman told Virginian-Pilot staff writer Joe Jackson he never heard Stockton accept the murder contract. Bowman later changed his story again, signing an affidavit denying that he had recanted his testimony in the interview with Jackson.

Setting the execution date only one day after the Supreme Court considers whether to review Stockton's case still puts Stockton in a time bind, because Governor Allen can't consider clemency petitions until after a final court ruling.

There is no question that too much time usually elapses between conviction and execution, but for the criminal-justice system suddenly to move at what for the courts is warp speed to end Stockton's days on Earth is, to say the least, unseemly.

KEYWORDS: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT by CNB