Early release denied

Earl Washington must wait until February

BY FRANK GREEN

Earl Washington Jr., a nine-year death row resident cleared of capital murder by DNA, got a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking from the Virginia Parole Board yesterday: a notice that he had been turned down for early release.

At one time, he was within days of execution for the 1982 rape and murder of 19-year-old Rebecca Williams of Culpeper. But earlier this year, Washington was pardoned of capital murder when DNA tests found no trace of him at the crime scene and instead implicated a convicted rapist.

However, the mildly retarded, former farmhand also was serving 30 years for unrelated burglary and assault convictions. It was for those crimes that authorities refused for a second time, since October, to release him early.

His lawyers contend that had he not been convicted of capital murder, state figures show he would have served an average term of 10 to 11 years behind bars instead of the 17 years he has now served.

Washington must now wait until Feb. 12 for his release on mandatory parole. Mandatory parole is granted six months from the date an inmate's sentence would end.

Parole Board Chairman James L Jenkins said the board reached the decision yesterday not to grant discretionary parole because of "the serious nature of his offense" for which Washington is still being held.

Jenkins said it "was a brutal attack on an elderly woman in her home at night . . . to steal a handgun that he later used that same evening to shoot his brother" in the foot.

"The grant rate for cases like this is less than one percent," Jenkins said. When Washington is released on Feb. 12 on mandatory parole, he will live in a facility in Virginia Beach and be under the board's supervision "for years," Jenkins said.

Earlier this month, Jenkins said that if Washington were granted early parole, it would have taken a week or two before he would have been released.

Barry Weinstein, one of Washington's lawyers, said that while he concedes the assault was serious, "the crime that Earl was convicted of occurred 18 years ago. He had no prior criminal record. His institutional behavior has been exemplary."

Weinstein said he spoke by telephone with Washington, who is being held at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. "He wasn't surprised," Weinstein said.

"I said to him, 'I'm sorry.' He said, 'Don't be.' What Earl has learned is to handle situations where he doesn't build up his hope."

Gerald Zerkin, of Richmond, one of Earl's lawyers, said, "It's a moral, political and legal outrage and from these people, utterly not surprising. Earl will survive the additional time because he is a bigger man than they are."

Eric M. Freedman, a New York lawyer who helped to save Washington's life, said, "It's regrettable that the Parole Board has not been able to find it within its wisdom to release Earl."

"But the real culprit here is Gov. [Jim] Gilmore who tried to take the politically convenient way out by relegating Mr. Washington to the bureaucratic labyrinth rather than standing up to the plate and granting him his long overdue release," he said.

In 1994, Gov. L. Douglas Wilder commuted Washington's sentence to life after a 1993 DNA test strongly suggested he was innocent. A new test, using technology not available in 1993, was conducted this year.

As a result of the new DNA results, Gilmore ordered the state police to reopen their investigation into the case. He granted Washington an absolute pardon in a press release that held no hint of an apology or regret.

Gilmore said that testing of sperm found on a blue blanket at the crime scene showed it was left by an unidentified man who is a convicted rapist and who is now in prison.

Washington was the ninth death row inmate, or former death row inmate, in the nation to have been cleared, at least in part, by DNA evidence, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.

He is the first man sent to Virginia's death row to be exonerated since the death penalty resumed here in 1977.

Washington's burglary and assault charges stemmed from a May 1983 incident in Fauquier County. Washington, then 20, had been drinking heavily. He had a girlfriend, but she was also being courted by Washington's younger brother.

Fearful of losing her, he broke into the home of Hazel Weeks. Weeks, 73, was a neighbor of his aunt. He knew Weeks, and she had been kind to him in the past.

He was looking for a pistol he knew she kept in her house. When Weeks heard the glass breaking in her kitchen door, she confronted Washington. He hit her with a chair and fled with the pistol and some money. He then shot his brother in the foot.

He was sentenced to consecutive, 15-year terms for the Weeks assault and break-in. The Virginia attorney general's office says Weeks has since died.

While Washington was being questioned for the Weeks case, he confessed to the rape and murder of Rebecca Williams, who was stabbed 38 times in her apartment.  (SeeMissteps to Death Row:  How Earl Washington was sent to Death Row for a Crime He Didn't Commit.)

Authorities contend Washington knew details of the crime that only the killer could know. His lawyers contend Washington's initial confession was rife with factual errors that were corrected with prompting from the police.

Washington was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

In August 1985, he was taken from death row to the former Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond, where executions were then performed. He came within nine days of execution, set for Sept. 5, 1985.

The attorney general at the time, William G. Broaddus, now a Richmond lawyer who opposes the death penalty, said he has no independent recollection of the case but added he was sure that had there been no stay, Washington would have been executed.

In part because of the intervention of another death row inmate, Joseph Giarratano, and a prison activist, Marie Deans, Freedman took the case and the execution was called off.

Washington would spend nine and a half years on death row until the 1994 sentence commutation by Wilder.

Washington will not be returning to Fauquier or Culpeper counties to live. His lawyers have arranged for him to live in a special facility for the mentally disabled in Virginia Beach, which will provide him with supervision, education and a chance for employment.

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or fgreen@timesdispatch.com