Killer's attorney hoping for clemency

As the News & Messenger works to bring you the latest on the execution of convicted killed Paul Powell, a team of reporters and a photographer will report from the Greensville Correctional Facility in Jarratt, Va. starting Tuesday. Breaking news reporter Uriah A. Kiser will file video reports for our Web site and has also created a video blog about this event. Watch for them on insidenova.com and watch all of the blog entries in their entirety at youtube.com/whahooa.


Attorney Jonathan Sheldon said talking about Paul Powell and his last days on death row would only open more wounds for his victims' family.

The inmate is scheduled to die Tuesday for the January 1999 slaying of 16-year-old Stacie Reed in Yorkshire.

In a last-ditch effort to save Powell's life, Sheldon has asked Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for clemency, arguing prosecutors did not supply a certified copy of his client's criminal record to jurors when he was tried again in 2003.

The case is a complicated and a sensational one, Sheldon said.

In addition to the murder conviction, Powell also raped Stacie's 14-year-old sister, Kristie, the same day. After raping her, he sliced the teen's throat in several spots and stabbed her in her chest, nearly killing her.

He left her for dead in her parents' basement.

Powell, now 31, did all this after he killed Stacie and left her on a bedroom floor, according to court docu-ments.

Powell was convicted in 2000 of capital murder and was sentenced to death, but a later Virginia State Supreme Court ruling overturned the conviction, saying prosecutors did not show enough evidence that Powell intended to commit other crimes against his victims.

Without that, his didn't qualify as a capital case and should not have been eligible for the death pen-alty.

Powell was sent back to jail to serve a life sentence. While there, he wrote a letter to the man who prosecuted him --Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert.)

In graphic detail, he wrote about how and why he killed Stacie, saying he had intended to and tried to rape her. He also wrote about raping her younger sister.

The letter gave Ebert evidence of an attempted sexual assault in the commission of a murder, a capital offense. Powell was indicted again in 2003 on a capital murder charge. He was again sentenced to death.

But Sheldon said Ebert made a basic error -- providing jurors uncertified copies of Powell's criminal history that included the 2000 capital murder conviction that was previously overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court -- was inexcusable.

Certified documents in a court case must come from the clerk of the court. Ebert's, he said, did not.

Ebert said he would make no comment about the case until possibly after the execution.

The prosecutor has a long history of putting killers on death row. He will attend Powell's execution with the Reed family. It will be the first time Ebert has witnessed the execution of someone he convicted.

"I have the utmost respect for the prosecutors and the people who practice law in Prince William County, but the error that happened at the trial was shocking," said Sheldon.

Despite the fact that state and federal courts have continuously overturned Powell's double jeopardy argument, Sheldon said he has hope that Kaine will grant his client a stay of execution.

"I think the governor is going to take a hard look at the facts and I do believe that there are some serious reasons why the governor could grant clemency in this case," he said.

If Kaine does grant clemency, Sheldon said Powell will return to jail to serve a life sentence.

He would be transferred from the state prison in Jarratt, where he is now and where he is scheduled to be executed, to another maximum security facility in Virginia.

Staff writer Uriah A. Kiser can be reached at 703-878-8065.