Paul Warner Powell v. Commonwealth of Virginia

Summary

On retrial after the Supreme Court of Virginia reversed his first capital murder conviction, Paul Warner Powell was convicted of the capital murder of Stacey Lynn Reed predicated on attempted rape and sentenced to death on findings of both future dangerousness and vileness. The Court held that its prior mandate did not bar a new capital indictment on a previously uncharged gradation offense revealed by Powell's post-trial letter confession, that the bill of particulars in the first trial limited jeopardy to the rape of Kristie Reed so that double jeopardy and law-of-the-case doctrines did not apply, and that Ring v. Arizona did not alter Virginia's penalty-phase procedures. The Court also upheld the admission of Kristie's testimony under the common-scheme exception, the refusal to disqualify the Commonwealth's Attorney, the limits on voir dire under the invited error doctrine, and the sufficiency of the corroboration of Powell's confession, and found the death sentence neither imposed under passion, prejudice, or arbitrary factor nor excessive or disproportionate.