DATE: Monday, August 18, 1997               TAG: 9708180152

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Focus 

SOURCE: By Michelle Locke

        ASSOCIATED PRESS

                                            LENGTH:  113 lines

FOCUS: DELAYING THE DEATH PENALTYTHE WAIT ON DEATH ROW IS EXCRUCUATING - FOR THE INMATE AND THE VICTIM'S FAMILY AWAITING JUSTICE. AS APPEALS DELAY EXECUTIONS FOR YEARS, VICTIMS' FAMILIES MUST COPE WITH THEIR LIVES BEING "HELD IN LIMBO."

this date.] ILLUSTRATION: Willie Lloyd Turner

Crime: Murder

Time on death row: 15 years

GRAPHIC

Willie Lloyd Turner inhabited Virginia's death row longer than

any other inmate in modern times. He was executed by lethal

injection on May 25, 1995, after a 15-year wait on death row. Turner

was sentenced to death for the killing of William J. ``Jack'' Smith

Jr., a Franklin jewelry store owner.

Some highlights of Turner's effort to avoid execution:

He appealed four times through state courts and four times

through the federal court system.

He was taken to the death house three times to await execution,

in 1980, 1987 and 1990.

On May 13, 1985, Turner was within four hours of the electric

chair, when he was granted a stay by the U.S. Supreme Court. He

lived another 10 years on death row.

Originally scheduled to die in Virginia's electric chair, Turner

was on death row when the state began carrying out executions by

lethal injection.

Two of Smith's relatives were the first victims' relatives

allowed to watch an execution in Virginia.

JOSEPH ROGER O'DELL

Crime: Murder, rape

Time on death row: 12 years

[TIMELINE]

The case of Joseph Roger O'Dell, who was executed in Virginia in

July, generated 12 years of appeals. His odyssey through the legal

system was typical of the length of time inmates could avoid

execution.

Some of the details of his life of crime and his legal fight:

1965

A Roanoke native who grew up in Norfolk's Ocean View, O'Dell had

served time in prison and was sentenced to 20 years for killing a

fellow inmate.

1975

Sentenced in Florida to 114 years for robbery, assault and

abduction of a 23-year-old Zippy Mart clerk, Donna Doyle. Doyle

testified that he put a gun to her head, beat her with it and

threatened to rape her.

1985

On parole from Florida, O'Dell was arrested for the rape and

murder of Helen Schartner in Virginia Beach.

1986

Representing himself in one of the most expensive trials of its

time, O'Dell appeared in court 29 times and filed 179 motions before

the trial even began.

1988

O'Dell writes to a millionaire philanthropist saying he needs

money to pay for DNA testing to prove his innocence.

1989

Citing the circumstantial nature of the case, a judge allows

O'Dell to use new DNA technology to test the bloody clothing. Two

blood stains found on O'Dell's clothes were tested for DNA. Blood

from one stain did not match O'Dell's or Schartner's. The second,

originally regarded as a match with Schartner's blood, is in

dispute because the testing method has been discarded as unreliable.

1991

U.S. Supreme Court upholds his conviction but suggests that a

lower court consider the case because ``evidence raises serious

questions about whether he was guilty of the charged crime . . . or

capable of representing himself.''

1992

A U.S. District Court judge ruled that O'Dell should get a new

sentencing based on the idea that criminal defendants have the right

to counteract prosecutorial claims of future dangerousness with

information about their ineligibility for parole.

1996

In July, Sister Helen Prejean steps forward to support O'Dell.

The U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit rejects O'Dell's claim that he

has new DNA evidence that proves his innocence. The court splits

7-6 on the truth-in-sentencing idea. In November, an Italian protest

begins bubbling. Pope John Paul II asks for clemency for O'Dell. In

December, the U.S. Supreme Court stays O'Dell's Dec. 18 execution

in order to fully explore a legal point in the case.

1997

June: U.S. Supreme Court rules (5-4) that O'Dell got a fair trial

and should die for his crime.

July: O'Dell is executed.

SHORTENING THE WAIT

The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,

approved after nearly 20 years of congressional debate on federal

appeals reform, toughened standards for federal court review of

death penalty cases, set strict time limits for appeals and curbed

repeat petitions to federal courts.

One provision bars a convicted state defendant from beginning a

second round of federal appeals without authorization from a

three-judge appellate panel - and makes it difficult for the panel

to allow a prisoner's petition to be heard.

Moreover, the law does not permit inmates to appeal to the U.S.

Supreme Court after the panel spurns their petitions. KEYWORDS: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT DEATH ROW

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