Judge rejects execution stay

Press, 11 August 1982, Page 6

Judge rejects execution stay

NZPA Richmond An American Federal judge yesterday refused to stay the scheduled execution today (3 p.m., New Zealandtime) of Frank J. Coppola, rejecting a request filed without the consent of the convicted killer, who says he wants to die. The stay was denied after Coppola, aged 38, was taken to a holding cell in the Federal court-house for questioning by United States District Judge Dortch Warriner. A former lawyer for Coppola filed a petition for a stay yesterday without Coppola’s knowledge or consent, arguing , that the condemned man’s death wish was irrational.

Should Coppola go to thechair as scheduled at 11 p.m. (A.E.D.T.) he would become the first prisoner executed in Virginia in years and the fifth in the nation since< ; the United Stat'es Supreme Courtrevived the death penalty in 1976. The stay petition by J; Norfolk, whom Coppola sacked in June, said there was serious doubt about Coppola’s ability to make.a rational choice whether, to continue or abandon more litigation. Brutal and dehumanising treatment on “death-row” at the state’s maximum security prison in Mecklenburg County, the petition said, had made Coppola the unwitting

engine of his own destruction. But the state Attorney- • General’s Office told the judge that the petition was . merely a delaying tactic to keep the Commonwealth from following a circuit • court’s order that Coppola be executed. The state argued that doctors- from a state mental hospital already had examined Coppola and found him/ competent, and that their findings had been accepted by the Court. Coppola, a former. Portsmouth policeman (a job ■he had for a year in the 60s), has repeated for four months that he wants to be executed, saying he would rather die

than continue to. be , incarcerated on “death-row” at the prison. / ' He was convicted of beating Muriel Hatchell, aged 45, to death during a burglary at her home. The woman’s severely beaten husband was the chief witness against him at the trial. , i; . , .- The Governor, of,, Virginia (Mr Charles Robb);, a death penalty supporter who has the power to delay, the execution or commute Coppola’s sentence, has-given no public hint whether he will, allow the execution to take place. ,-Mr Robb, a son-in-law of the late President Lyndon Johnson’s, has said only that he will consider all arguments: put to him.