DATE: Monday, August 18, 1997               TAG: 9708180035

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   50 lines

4TH CIRCUIT COURT TO CONSIDER RETRIAL FOR DEATH ROW INMATE A JUDGE RULES THE TRIAL UNFAIR BECAUSE AN IDENTIFICATION BY A WITNESS WAS UNFAIR.

A death row inmate could be granted a new trial after a federal judge ruled that an improper identification made in court denied him a fair trial.

Michael Charles Satcher, 29, was convicted of raping Anne Elizabeth Borghesani and stabbing her 21 times in 1990. Her body was found a half-block from the Arlington bike path where she had been riding.

DNA evidence linked Satcher to the rape, and another woman who was attacked on the path that night identified him as her assailant.

But U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne found that the trial judge made a critical error in allowing the second woman to identify Satcher in court after she failed to pick him out of a lineup earlier.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering granting Satcher a new trial.

Satcher was three to four inches shorter, four years younger and 50 pounds lighter than the assailant described by the woman, court documents show. She had also picked a different man out of a police lineup.

During the trial, the woman said on the stand that she recognized Satcher in court from the way he walked and ``shrugged.''

Payne agreed with Satcher's lawyers that the trial was unfair.

Defense attorneys also claim the DNA evidence that pointed to Satcher was flawed.

They say tests they conducted on the DNA evidence differed by more than 3 percentage points from Satcher's, outside the acceptable margin of error.

Prosecutors disagreed, noting that state experts had called the DNA difference ``scientifically meaningless.''

The 4th Circuit has not ordered a new capital trial in Virginia since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. But in July, the court ordered new trials for two South Carolina inmates whose juries received flawed instructions.

Deputy prosecutor Arthur Karp said he wouldn't have any hesitation about retrying the case, but Borghesani's family doesn't like to think about that.

``Our worst nightmare would be to consider that he would be free to walk the streets again,'' her mother, Elizabeth Borghesani, said.

Satcher's mother understands, but thinks her son could be cleared.

``If there were anything that would bring their daughter back, I would do it, no questions asked,'' Vashti Satcher said. ``I have three daughters of my own, and if something happened to them, I would want to be sure they got the right person. . . . The right person is still out there.'' KEYWORDS: DEATH ROW APPEAL

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu