DATE: Friday, May 23, 1997                  TAG: 9705230724

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   32 lines

4TH CIRCUIT REJECTS APPEAL IN '86 PORTSMOUTH SLAYING

A federal appeals court Thursday threw out the appeal of a death-row inmate who robbed and killed a woman in Portsmouth in 1986.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned a judge's decision that Carlton Jerome Pope should be allowed to pursue federal appeals.

Pope was convicted of capital murder for shooting Cynthia Gray to death and stealing her purse. Gray's sister, Marcie Ann Kirchheimer, was shot and wounded. Kirchheimer identified Pope as the attacker.

On appeal, Pope argued that he took Gray's purse before the shooting and concealed it. He claimed that meant he could only be convicted of larceny, not robbery, and therefore would not be guilty of capital murder.

The Virginia Supreme Court rejected that argument. But U.S. District Judge Robert R. Merhige Jr. agreed with Pope.

The federal appeals panel, however, sided with the state Supreme Court. The court said the theft and the murder clearly were part of the same crime.

``The taking of property and the killing of Cynthia were so closely related in time, place, and causal connection that they met Virginia's definition of common criminal enterprise,'' Judge John D. Butzner Jr. wrote. ``Well established principles of law and the evidence support the judgment that Pope was guilty of capital murder.'' KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING ROBBERY

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