THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 19, 1995 TAG: 9510190357
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
A Virginia Beach man, scheduled to die Friday for his role in a 1991 murder for hire, has received a stay of execution in order to find a lawyer. But Mickey Wayne Davidson, a Smyth County man who has forfeited his appeals, is scheduled to die of lethal injection tonight.
U.S. District Judge Richard Williams granted a stay to Mario B. Murphy early Wednesday. Murphy, whose death sentenced was affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court in June, has 30 days to find a lawyer willing to represent him. If he is unable to find one, a court-appointed attorney will be assigned to his case.
Murphy, 21, was sentenced to death for his role in recruiting and leading a four-man hit squad that beat and stabbed James Radcliff to death in exchange for a $5,000 payoff. Murphy himself was recruited by the boyfriend of Robin Radcliff, the victim's wife. Prosecutors said Radcliff wanted her husband killed so she could collect $100,000 in insurance money. Although all six co-defendants in the case pleaded guilty, Murphy was the only one sentenced to death.
Both Murphy and Davidson received execution dates despite the fact that their cases had not yet been reviewed by the federal courts. A new law, proposed last year by Attorney General James Gilmore, calls for the setting of an execution date after an inmate has exhausted review of his case by the state.
Davidson, who killed his wife and two stepdaughters in 1990, is also without a lawyer. Unlike Murphy, however, he has decided not to exercise his right to appeal in the federal courts. Davidson wants to die, said Tony Anderson, a Roanoke lawyer who represented him on state appeals. And since the state began offering lethal injection as an option to the electric chair, he has been unwavering in that decision.
``Since they have gone to lethal injection, Mickey has been pretty steadfast about wanting to die,'' Anderson said Wednesday. ``He doesn't want to spend the rest of his life on death row. He just does not like to live day by day with the pain of his actions.''
Although the Virginia Supreme Court denied a request for a mental evaluation of Davidson in August, Anderson said he does not think his former client is mentally competent to drop his appeals.
``We should at least do this right,'' said the lawyer. ``If we just start killing them willy-nilly without determining whether they're competent to waive their rights - if we just execute everyone who wants to be executed - we'll wind up ahead of Texas.'' ILLUSTRATION: Mario B. Murphy has 30 days to find a lawyer willing to
represent him.
KEYWORDS: DEATH ROW STAY EXECUTION by CNB