THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 27, 1995 TAG: 9510270555
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
A federal appeals court Thursday upheld the capital murder conviction and death sentence of a man who shot a Virginia Beach convenience store clerk during a robbery.
Richard Townes was convicted of the April 14, 1985, slaying of Virginia Goebel. The woman was shot with a .45-caliber handgun.
An empty shell casing found next to her body matched empty casings from a gun traceable to Townes, and a customer testified she saw Townes in the store shortly before Goebel was shot.
Townes represented himself at his trial. In his appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he argued that the trial judge improperly failed to conduct a hearing on his competency to represent himself before the trial's sentencing phase. Such a hearing was held before the guilt phase.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled that Townes failed to prove that, in the absence of such a hearing, no reasonable juror would have found him eligible for the death penalty.
Townes also claimed that the judge failed at the first hearing to advise him of the perils of self-representation in the sentencing phase, should the case proceed that far.
Again, the appeals court disagreed.
``The state court conducted a full and fair colloquy, sufficiently emphasizing the danger that Townes could be sentenced to death if convicted,'' Judge James Dickson Phillips Jr. wrote.
He was joined in the opinion by Judge Paul V. Niemeyer. Judge Michael Luttig wrote a separate concurring opinion.
KEYWORDS: SHOOTING MURDER TRIAL SENTENCING by CNB