THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996              TAG: 9601060278
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                         LENGTH: Short :   46 lines

SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW VIRGINIA INMATE'S CASE ON DEATH ROW, COLEMAN GRAY CLAIMS HE WAS WRONGLY SENTENCED.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to review the death sentence of a Virginia inmate who says prosecutors ambushed him by producing surprise evidence that he committed two other killings.

The court said it will hear Coleman Wayne Gray's argument that an appeals court wrongly reinstated his death sentence after it was thrown out by a federal judge. The appeals court said the judge improperly created a new rule and applied it to Gray's case.

Gray was charged with killing Richard McClelland in Suffolk in May 1985 during a kidnapping and robbery. He was convicted after his co-defendant pleaded guilty and testified against him.

The day before the sentencing phase of Gray's trial was to begin, prosecutors told his lawyers that they planned to introduce testimony and photographs to indicate that Gray killed a woman and her young daughter in 1984.

The state trial judge allowed the evidence to be presented to the jury over objections by Gray's lawyer that he did not have time to prepare a rebuttal. Gray denied involvement in the double-killing, and he was not charged in that case.

He was sentenced to death on the jury's finding that he posed a threat of future harm to society.

Gray challenged his sentence in federal court. A judge threw out the sentence, saying the evidence was ``very questionable'' and that the prosecution's tactics violated Gray's constitutional right to due process.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the death sentence, saying the federal judge improperly applied a new rule to Gray's case.

In the appeal acted on Friday, Gray's lawyer said the federal judge properly applied existing constitutional standards to his case.

Further, his lawyer said prosecutors should be required to disclose evidence in a defendant's favor when seeking to prove that the defendant poses a future danger to society. by CNB