THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 22, 1995 TAG: 9509220027
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Dennis W. Stockton probably will be executed Wednesday for a murder-for-hire that may have been committed by the key witness against him.
Three people have come forward, at considerable personal risk, to point fingers at the key witness, Randy G. Bowman, in sworn affidavits.
Bowman's ex-wife, Patricia Ann McHone, and former close friend, Kathy Carreon both say Bowman told them he killed Kenneth Arnder, the young man Stockton was convicted of murdering in the summer of 1978.
Bowman's son by McHone, Timothy Crabtree, 16, said his father ``told me many stories about people he beat up or about people he killed.''
Crabtree said Bowman told him about killing a boy before Crabtree was born and burying the body near a stream in or near Mt. Airy, N.C. Arnder was killed before Crabtree was born and buried near Mt. Airy.
Crabtree further said in his affidavit, ``I also read about people he hurt from a journal he kept in a composition book. He never mentioned names.''
All three affidavits were filed Tuesday with the state Supreme Court in Richmond as part of an appeal for a new hearing. But authorities in North Carolina and Virginia apparently will not seek the journal or investigate the new allegations against Bowman.
The odds against Stockton's getting a new hearing are long in large part because a state law allows the introduction of new evidence only within 21 days of conviction. As staff writer Joe Jackson reported Wednesday, ``It is a law that has led experts to call Virginia the worst state in the nation for a lack of due-process protection - even when there is considerable doubt about an inmate's guilt.''
One might well argue that the new statements should have been obtained before the trial, but the state refused to provide Stockton's lawyers an investigator. And, again, the three witnesses have had reason to fear for their lives. Several people connected with the case later died violent deaths, after Stockton was imprisoned.
If the state Supreme Court rejects a plea for a new hearing, Stockton's lawyers will appeal again to federal courts, though last Friday the U.S. Supreme Court denied what was supposed to be Stockton's final appeal.
It would appear that Gov. George Allen will ultimately determine whether Stockton lives or dies. That bodes badly for Stockton, since Allen was elected on a popular get-tough-on-crime platform.
Not just bleeding-heart liberals agonize over the execution of people whose guilt is in doubt. Impeccably conservative columnist James Kilpartick, in a piece that appeared in this newspaper Sept. 10, said:
``As a newspaperman I have been deeply involved with three cases in which defendants have been sentenced to death. In all three, I became convinced that the state had not proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.''
His column concluded, ``At the end of the maze, if the courts have found no error, let the executioner pull the switch. But let us first take the time, and spend the money, to be as certain as certain can be that what we are doing is right.''
In the case of Stockton, the state is not ``as certain as certain can be.''
KEYWORDS: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT by CNB