N.C. Supreme Court Stays Execution

By ESTES THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The North Carolina Supreme Court issued a stay of execution Tuesday for a death row inmate whose lawyer admitted sabotaging his appeal after deciding his client ``should be executed for his crimes.''

In a unanimous decision, the high court sent the case of Russell Tucker back to Forsyth County Superior Court for a new hearing and ordered the court to appoint new lawyers for Tucker.

Tucker had been scheduled to die Dec. 7 for the 1994 murder of Kmart security guard Maurice Travone Williams.

The ruling came after his attorney, David Smith, confessed that he let his co-counsel miss a deadline for filing an appeal, a move he hoped would lead to Tucker's death.

``I did what I had to do to rectify the situation I created,'' Smith said earlier this month. ``I had to put out the truth.''

Smith, a 52-year-old former assistant U.S. attorney with a reputation as a tough drug prosecutor, said in a court affidavit that he began to suffer from depression and insomnia after being assigned to represent Tucker on appeal in 1998.

He said he had disliked Tucker as soon as he met him in prison, and that after reading trial transcripts he decided Tucker ``should be executed for his crimes.''

With a deadline approaching for filing an appeal with the state's highest court, Smith said he was ``passively sabotaging'' Tucker's chances.

Prosecutors have said they will not oppose postponing Tucker's execution, which is likely to be delayed anyway because federal courts have yet to hear the case.

State bar officials wouldn't say Smith would face disciplinary action.

``This is an example of serious problems in the system that an attorney wanted to kill his client, and the state Supreme Court recognized there were problems,'' said Ken Rose, director of the state Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which assists lawyers in capital cases.