DATE: Thursday, July 24, 1997               TAG: 9707240375

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: WINSTON-SALEM                     LENGTH:   43 lines

MOORE'S CLAIM OF JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT DISMISSED

Attorneys seeking a new trial for convicted arsenic killer Blanche Taylor Moore lost one of their major arguments Wednesday when a judge dismissed charges of misconduct by the trial judge.

Judge William Wood said Moore's trial attorneys knew of the trial judge's actions at the time of the trial and did nothing, preferring to raise the issue on appeal.

Moore's trial attorneys ``could have very adequately raised the ground or issue underlying the present motion, and the defendant did not do so. I cannot allow the defense to do so at this time,'' Wood said.

Moore, who attended the three-day hearing in Forsyth County Superior Court, was sentenced to death in November 1990 for lacing her boyfriend's food with arsenic.

Her appeal attorneys levied some serious and rather bizarre allegations about Judge William Freeman's conduct during her capital murder trial.

They charged that he he wore a Darth Vader mask to a Halloween gathering with jurors; posed for snapshots with jury members; and shared birthday cake and popcorn with jurors.

Janet Branch Clary, who prosecuted Moore, testified Wednesday that she remembered seeing Freeman wearing the mask on Halloween.

``I saw him go to the doorway of the jury room and raise his arms aloft and going side to side in the way of a Halloween monster, and then we heard the sound of laughter coming from the jury room,'' Clary said.

Defense attorney David Tamer had testified Tuesday that the state appellate defender advised him not to bring up potential judicial misconduct during the trial so that issue could be used on appeal.

``I understood I was not to do anything about it,'' he said. ``I was told to leave it alone. It was unequivocal.''

Tamer said the rationale was to have an issue in reserve if Moore were convicted.

Appellate defender Tye Hunter denied instructing the attorneys to take no action. He testified that he told Moore's attorneys that they could bring the issue up on appeal even if they did not do so during the trial. KEYWORDS: APPEAL

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