US state lifts execution rate with a death a week

A man who was convicted of killing an 18-year-old man and then cashing in his victim's life insurance policy was due to be put to death by lethal injection early today, the first of seven executions in as many weeks in the state of Virginia.


The southern state has already executed three men this year and the latest scheduled executions put it on course to break its record of 17 in a year - set early this century.


David Lee Fisher, aged 57, was sentenced to death in 1987 for persuading another man to shoot David Willey. He then tried to disguise the killing as an accident on a shooting trip before cashing in the policy. Fisher has been on death row for 12 years but the next six to be executed have been there for an average of just 4 1/2 years. In the 38 states which now have the death penalty, the average time a prisoner can expect to be under sentence is 11 years and one month.


The accelerated timetable in Virginia, which puts more criminals to death than any state except Texas, is attributed to an abbreviated appeals system and laws which make it more difficult to present new evidence after conviction.


'We've cut the appeals time down from 10-15 years to two to four,' the state governor, James Gilmore III, said.


But Henry Heller, a Charlottesville carpenter who heads a group called Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said: 'Our appeals process is useless.'


Since the death penalty was reinstated in Virginia in 1976, only six of the 107 death penalties handed down have been overturned or commuted to life in prison.


Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, said: 'That's about the lowest percentage of any state and certainly of any state with a sizable number on death row.' Even in Texas there is a better chance of delaying executions.


Virginia is also one of the few states which has no plans to phase out a choice between lethal injection and the electric chair.


After Fisher, the other six men to be executed will die between April 6 and May 12. The first is Terry Williams, aged 43, who confessed to killing an elderly man, thought at first to have died of a heart attack, and stealing $3 from his wallet.


The next, on April 13, is Carl Chichester, aged 36, who was found guilty of murdering the manager of a pizza parlour during a robbery.


He is to be followed by Arthur Jenkins, aged 29, who murdered two men - one of them his uncle - during an argument only a month after being released from prison.


Eric Payne, aged 26, had been on parole for five months after serving five years in jail for drug possession when he killed two women with a hammer after sexually assaulting them. He is to die on April 28.


The next day, Ronald Dale Yeatts, aged 38, will be executed for killing a 70-year-old woman after tricking his way into her house to steal $700. Finally Calvin Swann, aged 44, is to be executed on May 12 for killing a 62-year-old man whom he and a companion robbed of $60 to buy cocaine.


According to the latest report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, two years ago 17 states executed 74 prisoners, the largest number since 1955. Since the return of the death penalty 432 executions have been carried out in 29 states, nearly two-thirds of them in five states. The tally is Texas 144, Virginia 46, Florida 39, Missouri 29 and Louisiana 24.