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Execution stay granted
RICHMOND — The Sept. 3 execution date for condemned murderer Michael Marnell Smith was stayed Thursday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court gave Smith, 38, until Sept. 24 to seek a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Smith has been on Virginia’s death row longer than any other inmate. He was the first person charged with capital murder under the state’s revised death penalty law, which took effect July 1,1977.
Smith was convicted by a James City County jury of the May 23, 1977 rape and murder of Audrey Weiler. He admitted meeting Ms. Weiler on a James River beach near his home, raping her and then dragging her into the river where he held her under water and then stabbed her in the back.
Ms. Weller’s death was .ributed to drowning.
The crime occurred less than four months after Smith had been paroled on a previous rape conviction.
Previous appeals by Smith have been denied by the Virginia Supreme Court, U.S. District Court and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court.
Admiral urges security
NORFOLK — The commander of the Atlantic Fleet, asked Thursday about damage the Navy might have suffered from the alleged spying of John A. Walker Jr., urged sailors to be security conscious.
“You have to realize there are people out in the world today who don’t value their country and would sell it away for a pittance,” Adm. Wesley L. McDonald said in an improptu exchange with sailors from the battleship Iowa.
The admiral spoke to the sailors after presenting an award to the vessel as the Atlantic Fleet’s best ship. When the ceremony ended, Adm. McDonald stepped from a podium and strode into the crew’s ranks.
As for the Walker espionage case, Adm. McDonald said he was “uncomfortable that some of our communica
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