Man Spared Death Penalty Not Bitter

Feb 11

By SONJA BARISIC, 

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.  - A year out of prison, Earl Washington Jr. is full of plans.He's getting married in May. He's studying for his GED while working full time as a maintenance man. And he's working to get a driver's license so that he can be a truck driver one day.

Washington, mildly retarded with an IQ of 69, was released from prison on Feb. 12, 2001, after DNA tests cleared him of a 1982 rape and murder to which he had confessed. He still had to finish serving time for an unrelated assault.

He spent nearly 10 years on death row and came nine days away from dying in the electric chair when he was granted a stay in 1985.

But as Washington puts his life back together, bitterness is not part of the plan.

"With me I guess, being bitter means you stay mad all the time. That's something I don't try to do," he said.

He said he was angry during his early years in prison: "The first five years I guess I let the devil take over my mind."

But his faith in God helped him to cope.

"I try to stay happy all the time," he said, grinning, as he sat on the couch in the tiny living room of his apartment, a large American flag on the wall behind him.

"It looks good up there," he said of the flag, which was given to his family when his father died in 1995. Washington wasn't permitted to attend that funeral, or the funeral of his mother, who died three months later.

While in prison, Washington thought he would never again be free. So the first week after his release felt like a dream, he said.

"It's real now," said Washington, a former farm hand from Fauquier County.

Early DNA tests cast doubt on Washington's guilt in the rape and murder of Rebecca Lynn Williams, 19. In 1994, Gov. L. Douglas Wilder commuted his sentence to life and in 2000, Gov. Jim Gilmore pardoned Washington after more tests failed to find Washington's DNA.

Culpeper County Commonwealth's Attorney Gary Close, whose predecessor prosecuted Washington, opposed the pardon and said he thinks Washington is guilty.

 "To me, it is hard to discount the confession," Close said.

 Close also said that the DNA evidence is not conclusive. "It just means that somebody else was there" but not necessarily that Washington wasn't there, he said.

 He noted that Washington was convicted of another crime. In 1983, he was arrested after breaking into a neighbor's home and hitting her with a chair.

 "Those people who want to make Earl Washington a saint want to forget what he did in Fauquier County," Close said.

 During the investigation into that assault, Washington confessed to that crime and to Williams' rape and murder.

 Washington won't talk about the Williams case. He said his lawyer advised him to say only, "It's in the past."

 He said he doesn't remember the 1983 assault, but he doesn't deny his guilt. "I know I was drunk, for one thing," he said. "People do strange things when they're drunk."

 "I still regret what happened to the woman," he added. "I always will."

 Also on his attorney's advice, Washington wouldn't say whether he thought the state should compensate him financially for his time on death row.

 When Washington was released from the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, he was taken to Support Services of Virginia Inc., a private organization in Virginia Beach that provides services to the mentally ill and retarded.

 Washington soon learned how to live in a free environment and to make the most basic of decisions, from what to have for dinner to how to budget his money.

 "The key to the transition was that Earl was not angry," said Kay Mirick, president of Support Services. "It would not have been easy if he had come out angry at the world. He's a calm, mild-mannered man who has better coping mechanisms than probably you and I put together."

A friend introduced Washington to Pam Edwards, 39, another Support Services client, shortly after he was freed. The couple now share a one-bedroom apartment and plan to get married on May 4, the day after Washington turns 42.

Washington expects reporters to show up to talk to him Tuesday. But he has no big plans to celebrate the anniversary of his release from prison.

"It's just another work day," he said.