Tag: steve rosenfield

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In brief: City digs in, winemaker dies, rioters plead, and more

CRB member Rosia Parker wondered why police Chief RaShall Brackney couldn’t find time on her reportedly empty calendar to meet.

Truth in scheduling: Progress joins City v. Civilian Review Board fray

A Daily Progress reporter was a topic of discussion during public comment at the May 6 City Council meeting, following Nolan Stout’s story earlier that day that police Chief RaShall Brackney’s calendar seemed to contradict claims that she was unavailable to meet with the Police Civilian Review Board.

CRB member Rosia Parker thanked Stout for his reporting, while Mayor Nikuyah Walker blamed Stout for the escalating tension between the chief and the review board. Councilor Wes Bellamy said he had “personal issues” with the article, and defended Brackney and her calendar. Police gadfly Jeff Fogel yelled at Bellamy to “not punk out,” and Bellamy replied, “You’re the last one to tell me to punk out.”

The latest outburst follows a bizarre April 26 city press release that accused a CRB member of lying about Brackney refusing to meet with the board. That was followed by an even weirder April 30 retraction of the falsehood allegation, which instead pointed the finger at the Progress’ reporting. The paper stands by its story.

And in the latest deepening of trenches in the war of words, city spokesman Brian Wheeler told Stout his Freedom of Information Act request for emails between Brackney or her secretary and City Council or CRB members, and emails between councilors and CRB members, would cost $3,000 and require a $700 deposit. Wheeler refused to break down the costs, which are unprecedented in C-VILLE Weekly’s experience with FOIA.

Megan Rhyne with Virginia Coalition for Open Government says this is only the second time she’s seen a local government refuse to detail its alleged costs, and tells the DP, “I don’t think it’s very transparent.”

Quote of the week

“I believe we have more than enough mandatory minimum sentences—more than 200—in Virginia state code.” Governor Ralph Northam on why he won’t sign any more such bills, which he calls punitive, discriminatory, and expensive

In brief

Carbon friendlier

Charlottesville’s carbon emissions per household—11.2 tons annually—are a ton above the national average. City Council voted unanimously at its May 6 meeting to approve a climate action plan that includes a goal of 45 percent carbon emissions reduction by 2030, and total carbon neutrality by 2050.

Wine pioneer dies

David King. file photo

 

David King, patriarch of King Family Vineyards, died May 2 after what the family calls a “hard-fought” battle with cancer. The 64-year-old was a past chair of the Virginia Wine Board, a polo player, pilot, and reserve deputy with the Albemarle County Sheriff’s Office search and rescue division. The family will host a celebration of life on June 14 at their Crozet family farm from 7:30-9:30pm.

Rioters plead

The last two members of the now-defunct California white supremacist group Rise Above Movement, who traveled to Charlottesville for the August 2017 Unite the Right rally to brawl with counterprotesters, pleaded guilty May 3 in U.S. District Court. RAM founder Benjamin Drake Daley, 26, from Redondo Beach, and Michael Paul Miselis, 30, from Lawndale, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to riot. Fellow RAMmers Cole White and Thomas Gillen previously pleaded guilty.

The Guys

Unrelated Bridget Guy and Kyle Guy got top UVA athletics honors at the Hoos Choice Awards May 1. Bridget, from Greensburg, Pennsylvania, is an all-American pole vaulter who was undefeated this season. Indianapolis-native Kyle was named Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Final Four, in part for his sangfroid in firing off three free throws in a row to beat Auburn 63-62.

Flaggers appeal

Confederate battle flag-loving Virginia Flaggers were in circuit court May 2 to appeal a Louisa Board of Zoning Appeals decision that the 120-foot pole they raised on I-64 in March 2018 to fly the “Charlottesville I-64 Spirit of Defiance Battle Flag” exceeded the county’s maximum of 60 feet. The judge has not yet issued a ruling.

Cruel and unusual

The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Virginia’s death row inmates, who spend years alone in a small cell for 23 to 24 hours a day. The justices said the inmates face a “substantial risk” of serious psychological and emotional harm in violation of the Eighth Amendment in the case filed by local attorney Steve Rosenfield.

UVA student sentenced

When former UVA student Cayden Jacob Dalton drunkenly abducted and strangled his ex-girlfriend in August 2018, she told the judge “there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to die.” Now, he’ll serve one and a half years for the crime, with the rest of his 15-year sentence suspended.

Show us the money

With the first campaign finance reports filed March 31, we learned who’s pulling in the bucks ahead of the June 11 City Council Democratic primary,  as well as the funds raised by independents Paul Long and Bellamy Brown.

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‘Blot’ on justice: Nelson Mandela counsel believes Jens Soering’s innocence

International human rights attorney Irwin Cotler met with Jens Soering in prison, and says Soering’s case has “all the markers” of a wrongful conviction. Staff photo

The former UVA Echols Scholar convicted for the 1985 murders of his girlfriend’s parents has gotten another prominent supporter. Former Canadian minister of justice Irwin Cotler, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and who was an attorney for political prisoners Nelson Mandela and Natan Sharansky, was in town March 5 and says he thinks Jens Soering is wrongfully imprisoned.

Cotler says he was talking to Innocence Project founder Jason Flom and mentioned an upcoming visit to UVA law school. Flom told him about Soering, whom many believe is innocent of the horrific murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom in their Bedford home, particularly since new DNA analysis from blood at the crime scene indicates that other previously unidentified people were there, but not Soering.

Soering, a German citizen, has long claimed he confessed to the crime to protect then-girlfriend Elizabeth Haysom from execution. He says Haysom told him she’d killed her parents, and he  mistakenly believed he would have diplomatic immunity if he confessed to the crime.

He’s been in prison almost 33 years, and his case has been an international cause célèbre, with Germany calling for his repatriation and then-governor Tim Kaine agreeing to do so, only to have Bob McDonnell reverse the okay when he took office in 2010.

Cotler first became involved in wrongful convictions with the case of Steven Truscott, who was convicted of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl when he was 14. Cotler reviewed the evidence, and “I came to the conclusion there had been a miscarriage of justice,” he says.

After looking at the Soering case, “It struck me it had all the markers I’ve come to appreciate as the indicators of a wrongful conviction,” he says, listing false confession, inadequate attorney representation, and junk forensic science.

“It was a classic case of a wrongful conviction,” he says, and a “compelling case, which cried out for injustice that needed to be redressed, having gone on for 35 years.”

Cotler joins a prominent and growing array of Soering defenders, including bestselling author John Grisham and actor Martin Sheen, who wrote a letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch earlier this year calling for Soering’s release.

Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, who launched his own investigation of the case with a number of other cops, came to the conclusion Soering was innocent and wrote then-governor Terry McAuliffe that the evidence supports Soering’s innocence and that if tried today, he would not be convicted.

Cotler, who is an honorary member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, spent two hours with Soering at the Buckingham Correctional Center. “I was very much taken by his remarkable demeanor,” says Cotler of Soering, who has written 10 books while in prison, has been denied parole 14 times, and has never had an infraction during the more than three decades he’s been incarcerated.

“He doesn’t bear any rancor or desire for revenge,” says Cotler, who notes that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years before becoming president of South Africa, and taught that country “the importance of reconciliation.”

Soering has “a real feeling for what justice is all about,” says Cotler. “I hope his freedom will allow him to make the mark he has made in prison.”

A German documentary, Killing for Love, was released in 2016 and supports Soering’s innocence. And in an interview for the film, Elizabeth Haysom said her mother had sexually abused her for years, which experts like Harding say would be a motive for the murders.

Soering’s attorney Steve Rosenfield filed a petition for pardon in 2016 with the governor’s office, where’s it’s languished. A call to the secretary of the commonwealth, which handles pardons, was not returned, nor was a message to Governor Ralph Northam’s office.

Cotler is hopeful investigators for the governor and the parole board will resolve the matter and free Soering. The case, he says, “is a blot on the criminal justice system as a whole.”

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Wrongful delay: Virginia continues to victimize Robert Davis

Robert Davis, who served 13 years in prison for a wrongful conviction, stands to receive almost $600,000 from the state. Photo by Ryan Jones

It wasn’t enough that a wrongful conviction took nearly 13 years of Robert Davis’ life. Now, two years after he was released from prison and more than a year after then-Governor Terry McAuliffe granted him a full pardon, the General Assembly is stalled in a budget war that threatens to hose Davis’ state-mandated compensation.

Delegate David Toscano carried the bill that would give Davis nearly $600,000, and it passed the House 100-0. But when it went to the Senate, it became entangled in the Senate’s budget that does not expand Medicaid and the House’s, which does. That difference caused the Senate to slice expenditures, even for the wrongfully incarcerated.

Davis was 18 years old when he was named as a participant in a February 2003 murder of Nola Charles and her 3-year-old son. After being subjected to a police interrogation that resulted in what’s been called a “textbook” false confession, Davis entered an Alford plea and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

It was only after two siblings convicted in the slayings, Rocky and Jessica Fugett, admitted that Davis had nothing to do with the deaths, that he was released from prison December 21, 2015.

“It’s frustrating,” says Davis. “I made $12,000 last year,” working four and five part-time jobs.

The General Assembly has a formula to compensate the wrongfully incarcerated that’s based on 90 percent of the state’s per capita income.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” says Davis’ attorney Steve Rosenfield. “It does not take into account the 12 years of a young man’s life. It doesn’t take into account going to the movies or getting a pizza—all the things that were denied Robert.”

If the General Assembly agrees to the compensation, Davis would get an initial lump sum of $116,463 as soon as he signs a release agreeing to not make further claims against the state. The balance of nearly $466,000 goes to purchase an annuity for Davis, who is also entitled to receive $10,000 for tuition at a Virginia community college.

Davis says he’d use the lump sum to pay off debts and buy a reliable vehicle. “I’m so afraid my car will die on me,” he says.

He also wants to take classes to get electrical or HVAC certification. “I want to get educated,” he says. “I know I can’t live off this money forever.”

The General Assembly session adjourned March 10 without voting on a final budget bill, and the fate of Davis’ compensation is uncertain. If the General Assembly does not have a budget to fund government operations on July 1, Governor Ralph Northam will likely propose a new budget and require a vote.

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Robert Davis’ mother killed in head-on collision

Sandy Seal with Robert Davis after his December 2015 release from prison. Photo Ryan Jones

The mother of Robert Davis, who spent 13 years in prison for crimes he didn’t commit and who got an absolute pardon from the governor before Christmas, died in a collision with a tanker truck Thursday morning in Augusta County.

Sandra M. Seal, 57, of Crimora, was traveling on U.S. 340 just before 11am when her 2001 Toyota Corolla crossed the center line and crashed head-on into the truck, which was partially loaded with propane, according to Virginia State Police. The truck flipped onto its side, but the tank did not rupture and the driver was uninjured. Seal died at the scene.

Seal also is the mother of local musician Lester Seal, who hosted a fundraiser for his brother last February after Davis was released from prison on a conditional pardon.

During her son’s long incarceration for the 2003 murders in Crozet of her Cling Lane neighbor Nola Charles and her toddler son, Seal said the wrongful conviction made her family victims, too. “I’m a victim because I didn’t have my son for 13 years,” she said in 2016. “Lester grew up without his brother. Robert is a victim because he lost his freedom for something he didn’t do.”

She also said her health suffered as a result of Davis’ imprisonment, and that she lost her job when he was accused of the horrific crimes.

Davis, 32, was released from prison December 21, 2015, which was Sandy Seal’s birthday, and she was overjoyed to see her son free for the first time since he was 18 years old.

A year later on December 16, Governor Terry McAuliffe granted Davis an absolute pardon.

Davis made what is now considered a textbook example of a coerced false confession. Seal told reporters a few days after his full pardon, “I’ve been kicking myself. I never talked to my kids and said, ‘If a policeman wants to talk to you to clear something up, say you want a lawyer.’”

Steve Rosenfield is Davis’ attorney and represented him for years pro bono to get him pardoned after the siblings convicted of the murders, Rocky and Jessica Fugett, admitted they’d lied when they said Davis took part.

“Sandy expressed to me her greatest joy was seeing Robert exonerated and all the sadness from the years she waited for his freedom was swept away by the governor’s judgment,” says Rosenfield.

One day before her death, Rosenfield filed a petition in the Albemarle Circuit Court to get Davis’ criminal record expunged .

 

 

 

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Innocent man: Governor grants full pardon for Robert Davis

Robert Davis is ready to "thrive and flourish" as a free man with his felony record expunged. Photo Ryan Jones

 

Robert Davis faced the camera on Facebook live at 7pm December 16. Two hours earlier, at 4:48pm, Governor Terry McAuliffe signed an absolute pardon that proclaimed Davis’ innocence for the two murders that kept him in prison for 13 years.

“I’m a free man,” said Davis on camera. “I’m trying not to cry, y’all have to understand, I’m trying not to cry.”

He then took scissors and cut the GPS ankle bracelet that he’d worn since getting out of prison December 21, 2015, when McAuliffe granted him a conditional pardon.

“I’m a free man,” he said. “I’m a free man.”

Davis was 18 years old when Albemarle police wanted to talk to him about a horrific murder that had taken place in his Crozet neighborhood February 19, 2003. After the flames died down in the house on Cling Lane, Nola Charles, 41, was found with her arms duct-taped and a knife in her back. Her 3-year-old son, Thomas, was found under debris in her bedroom, dead from smoke inhalation.

Two neighborhood siblings eventually convicted for the murders, Rocky and Jessica Fugett, said Robert was involved in the slayings. Despite dozens of denials the night police picked him up at midnight and interrogated him for six hours, desperate to get some sleep, Davis finally said the fateful words, “What can I say I did to get me out of this?”

Davis entered an Alford plea in which he did not admit guilt, but acknowledged the prosecution had evidence to convict him with what’s now considered a textbook coerced confession coupled with the possible testimony of the Fugetts, both of whom have since recanted their statements that Davis was present at the murder.

Davis, 32, describes the past year he’s been out of prison as “a wild, fun ride.” He says he’s met a lot of musicians, a lot of friends and been astounded by the support of the Charlottesville community. “It’s been phenomenal,” he says.

But it wasn’t total freedom. He had to report to a probation officer and initially had an 11pm curfew. He had to ask for permission to visit his mother over the mountain in Crimora. And he had to wear the ankle bracelet.

“I’ve got an amazing probation officer who lets me do what I want as long as I don’t get in trouble,” he says. He was allowed to go to the beach for the first time as an adult, but because the bracelet is water resistant, but not waterproof, he couldn’t go swimming.

In a year of firsts, he has his own apartment, his first serious relationship and the support of total strangers. He was the subject of a “Dateline” episode, and says every time it airs, “I get texts from people I don’t know saying they’re so glad I’m home,” he says.

He works at ACAC and Holly’s Deli, as well as at his own side landscaping business. But living in Charlottesville is expensive. “I’ve been stressing over how I’m going to pay the bills,” he says.

Now that he’s been granted a full pardon, there could be compensation from the state, says his lawyer, Steve Rosenfield, who has spent thousands of unpaid hours working on Davis’ freedom. A state legislator must submit a bill and have it voted on by the General Assembly.

“It’s an amount that saddens me,” says Rosenfield. “They take the average salary in Virginia and give 90 percent of that. It doesn’t take into consideration Robert lost his teens and twenties. There’s no, ‘Sorry we took away your childhood and young adult years.’”

And there’s another thing that gnaws at Rosenfield. “We’ve been contending for 13 years the confession Robert gave Detective Randy Snead was a coerced confession,” he says. “It’s amazing to me that you can look at it online, and after the conditional pardon, [former Albemarle police chief Steve] Sellers all of a sudden proclaims it’s an unreliable confession. How competent is that police department? Wasn’t anyone paying attention?”

Sandy Seal, Davis’ mother, had her son returned to her last year on her birthday. She acknowledges that the Charles family were victims, but says she and her family were, too.

And the whole 13 years Davis was in prison, she says, “I’ve been kicking myself. I never talked to my kids and said, ‘If a policeman wants to talk to you to clear something up, say you want a lawyer.’”

Davis’ full pardon is only the third one McAuliffe has granted, says Rosenfield, who will request Davis’ record be expunged.

“I’ve had capital cases go to jury,” he says. “I’ve seen people executed. I’ve seen juries make large awards. I’ve never had anything like this—the emotional reaction to Robert’s declaration of innocence.”

“I just screamed at the top of my lungs,” says Davis when he heard the news.

Now he can get rid of the stigma of being a convicted felon, travel and live a normal life, he says.

And throughout his long ordeal, one thing Davis hasn’t been is bitter. “People ask why I smile so much and seem so happy,” he says. “It’s because I’ve been given a second chance at a decent life. I’m just amazed at how much Charlottesville has opened up its arms for me.”

DavisAbsolutePardonGrant

 

 

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Absolute pardon: Soering petitions another governor

Two young lovers and two heinous murders: A documentary of the Elizabeth Haysom and Jens Soering story heads to the U.S. as Soering seeks an absolute pardon. Courtesy Filmperspektive

During the 30 years he’s spent in prison, Jens Soering has maintained he had nothing to do with the brutal 1985 murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom, and that he only confessed to protect his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, from the death penalty.

Now Tim Kaine, the governor who agreed to send Soering back to Germany in 2010, a decision overturned by his successor, Bob McDonnell, is running for vice president, and Soering’s attorney has filed a petition for absolute pardon with Governor Terry McAuliffe, thrusting the case back into the international spotlight.

Germany, from its highest levels of government, has long lobbied for Soering’s return, and Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the case with President Barack Obama. German filmmakers have made a documentary, The Promise, on the heinous case in which two UVA Echols scholars were convicted that premiered in Munich in March and will be screened in the U.S. later this year.

Attorney Steve Rosenfield filed the petition August 23 and says he has indisputable scientific evidence that proves Soering, 50, is innocent. He points to a 1985 lab analysis of blood taken from the Haysoms’ Bedford home, which documents five stains of type O human blood—the same as Soering’s, but also the most common blood type.

In 2009, DNA analysis was done on two of those samples—the others were too degraded—and Virginia’s Department of Forensic Science said that Soering was “eliminated as a contributor.”

“That completely undermines the government’s argument it was Soering’s blood,” says Rosenfield.

But that’s not all. Rosenfield has a laundry list of errors made during the investigation and prosecution of Soering, who says he confessed because he thought his father’s mid-level diplomatic status would give him immunity.

An expert on police interrogations and confessions, Dr. Andrew Griffiths spent four months reviewing all statements Soering made to police and prosecutors after he and Haysom were caught in London a year after the murders, and concluded British and American investigators “violated a host of British laws,” says Rosenfield, including holding Soering incommunicado and denying him access to his solicitor.

Soering also failed to accurately describe the crime scene, says Rosenfield. The UVA student claimed he was in the dining room, walked behind Derek Haysom and sliced his throat. “Why didn’t we find blood on the table?” asks Rosenfield. Haysom was found with 38 stab wounds in the living room, which was awash in blood.

Nancy Haysom was wearing her night clothes, and FBI profiler Ed Sluzbach said the killer was someone she was very comfortable with because she was a “proper woman” and wouldn’t have entertained in her pajamas. Soering said she was wearing jeans, says Rosenfield.

Elizabeth Haysom, who is serving 90 years in the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women as an accessory before the fact, claimed she was in Washington, D.C., to establish an alibi while Soering drove to Bedford to kill her parents. Yet a dishrag was found near Nancy Haysom’s body with type B blood, the same type as Elizabeth’s, says Rosenfield.

Elizabeth also alleged she was on a street in Georgetown when Soering drove up in the rental car, covered in blood and wearing only a sheet. Detectives sprayed the car with Luminol, which causes even minute flecks of blood to light up in blue. No stains turned up in the car, according to Rosenfield.

Prosecutors in the 1990 trial also tied Soering to a sock print, the use of which has been discredited by the FBI and American Academy of Forensic Scientists, along with bite marks. In 2009, Innocence Project cofounder Peter Neufeld and UVA law professor/wrongful conviction expert Brandon Garrett wrote an article that asserted sock prints are not accepted as scientific evidence.

And then there’s the mysterious man. About two months after the murders, transmission shop owner Tony Buchanan said he called Bedford investigators because a woman and man brought a car to his shop that had blood on the floorboard and a hunting knife, the type of weapon police believe was used, in between the seats. After Haysom and Soering went on the lam, Buchanan said he recognized her from news photos, but the man with her was not Soering. Police never responded to his information, Rosenfield says.

Rosenfield held a press conference August 24, during which he criticized Republicans and right-wing media who are “uninterested in the facts of the case” and who instead are targeting Hillary Clinton’s running mate Kaine for attempting to repatriate Soering under the terms of an international treaty.

Present at the press conference were Kaine staffers who spent months investigating the case, which McDonnell rejected immediately upon taking office with no investigation, according to Rosenfield.

Not only does Rosenfield want Soering given an absolute pardon, but while the parole board investigates the case, he wants Soering released from the Buckingham Correctional Center on parole “in light of Jens’ innocence.”

Rosenfield represented former Crozet resident Robert Davis, who spent 13 years in prison after making a false confession. McAuliffe granted him a conditional pardon December 21, 2015.

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VP candidate and convicted murderer in spotlight again

The Dem VP candidate okayed Jens Soering's return to Germany in 2010—to no avail. Photo Clements Mayes

Former UVA student Jens Soering has spent more than 30 years in prison while protesting his innocence. And Tim Kaine, shortly before he left the Governor’s Mansion in 2010, agreed to repatriate Soering to Germany, a move that was immediately overturned by his successor, Bob McDonnell.

Now Kaine has been tapped to be the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and Soering is still in prison–and still claiming his innocence in the heinous murders of his then-girlfriend Elizabeth Haysom’s parents in 1985 in Bedford. His story, which has gained international attention, was made into a documentary that premiered in Munich last month. 

Because of the notoriety of the murders, Kaine experienced some fallout from his decision to send Soering back to Germany, but not enough to derail his run for the U.S. Senate in 2012. But according to Soering’s lawyer, Steve Rosenfield, the then-governor was doing what Congress and the president wanted him to do when they created an international treaty for the transfer of prisoners in 1977 to aid in rehabilitation and to save money.

“Tim Kaine spent nine months investigating the case,” and Rosenfield calls it “very commendable” that he did so. “McDonnell and [Ken] Cuccinelli had a press conference and did no investigation,” he says. “For them it was all politics.”

Soering has advocates at the highest levels of German government, and Chancellor Angela Merkel broached the topic with President Barack Obama in 2014. The position of the Germans, says Rosenfield, “always has been Jens should be returned to Germany under international treaty.”

Governor Terry McAuliffe rejected a petition to do so last year. But with Kaine running for vice president, and a documentary headed to the U.S., Soering’s story is unlikely to go unnoticed.

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Davis story airs on Valentine’s Day

Robert Davis, center, talks to Dateline's Keith Morrison, right, about what it's like to be out of prison after 13 years. Staff photo

A Crozet man who went to prison for nearly 13 years after making a false confession in a grisly murder is the subject of a “Dateline NBC” episode airing Sunday, February 14, at 7pm.

Robert Davis was 18 years old when he was named as an accomplice by siblings Rocky and Jessica Fugett, who were convicted in the February 19, 2003, slayings of Nola “Ann” Charles and her toddler son. After a six-hour, middle-of-the-night interview by a cop Davis thought of as a friend, Davis asked the fateful question, “What can I say I did to get me out of this?” Experts have called that interview a textbook case of false confession.

Because of the confession and the threat of the Fugetts’ testimony, Davis entered an Alford plea, in which he maintained his innocence but acknowledged the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison. In the ensuing years, the Fugetts recanted, and on December 21, Governor Terry McAuliffe granted Davis a conditional pardon.

“Dateline” has been working on the story since 2012, when Davis’ lawyer, Steve Rosenfield, prepared a clemency petition to go to then-governor Bob McDonnell. “Dateline” reporter Keith Morrison was in town in January to film final interviews with Davis as a free man.

“I’m a little nervous,” says Davis. “I know it’s going to be emotional, and I’m trying to prepare myself for that.” He says he’s glad the episode is finally airing. “I hope it will help someone in the future,” he says.

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McAuliffe’s dilemma: Will he support McDonnell or Kaine in Jens Soering case?

New experts are in Jens Soering's corner. He's pictured here in 2003. Photo: Clement Mayes

Former UVA student/convicted murderer Jens Soering has been in prison for 29 years for the stabbing deaths of his girlfriend’s parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom, in 1985. During that time, his case has become an international cause célèbre, and a request to repatriate him to Germany is again before a Virginia governor.

In 2010, outgoing Democratic Governor Tim Kaine agreed to send Soering back to Germany. Almost immediately upon taking office, Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, since convicted of criminal charges himself, revoked Kaine’s decision.

Charlottesville civil rights attorney Steve Rosenfield represented Soering in a lawsuit against McDonnell in 2011, and argued McDonnell did not have the authority to revoke his predecessor’s order. He lost in 2012, and is representing Soering again in the latest repatriation efforts.

“Kaine spent nine months exploring, investigating and negotiating with the German government before his consent to the transfer, whereas McDonnell heard about the decision after a few days in office and did no homework before deciding to rescind Governor Kaine’s consent,” says Rosenfield.

Since McDonnell’s decision, 123 members of the German Parliament have petitioned Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe to release Soering, the son of a German diplomat. Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue during a 2014 visit to Washington, D.C., and the German human rights commissioner visited Soering at Buckingham Correctional Institute, where he’s being held, that same year.

While many people believe Soering’s case is one of botched justice and a human rights travesty, others believe he should rot in jail.

Delegate Rob Bell is one. “Given the vile and heinous nature of his crime, he should spend the rest of his life behind bars,” Bell writes in a recent letter to supporters, urging them to write McAuliffe and ask him to oppose Soering’s release.

Eighteen delegates, including Matt Fariss, who represents a portion of southern Albemarle, have written to McAuliffe and said Soering’s release “would also significantly undermine the integrity of Virginia’s criminal justice system, and would demonstrate that the justice system provides benefits to the powerful and well connected that are not available to minorities and the less fortunate.”

Bell was at UVA from 1984 to 1986, during some of which Soering, a Jefferson Scholar, and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, were students there. Bell says he “cannot recall a more atrocious crime.”

Following Kaine’s decision to allow the transfer to Germany, Bell urged the House of Delegates to pass a resolution opposing the move. “This is a grotesque miscarriage of justice,” he said on the House floor. “In 25 years—a quarter of a century—we haven’t had a more vile, abominable murder in Central Virginia.”

The night the Haysoms were murdered in their Bedford home, Soering and Elizabeth Haysom had rented a car and driven up to Washington. Someone drove the car back down to Bedford, where Derek Haysom was stabbed 36 times and Nancy Haysom eight times.

Soering and Haysom went on the lam for about a year, hopping from Europe to Bangkok to England, where they were caught running a check-and-merchandise return scam. Initially Soering confessed to the murders, and he said he believed that as the son of a German diplomat he would have immunity and could protect Haysom. He later recanted the confession, and said he stayed in Washington and bought movie tickets while Haysom drove down to Bedford.

She pleaded guilty to first-degree murder as an accessory before the fact in 1987 and was sentenced to 90 years in prison. She’s currently being held in the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women.

Soering fought extradition, and England only agreed to send him back to the U.S. if capital punishment were taken off the table. Soering was returned to Bedford in 1990, and a jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced him to two life sentences.

That was before Governor George Allen did away with parole. Soering has been eligible since 2003 and has been denied parole 10 times.

In prison, Soering has never been disciplined for an infraction, and he’s written nine books. While he doesn’t have access to a computer, supporters have created a website with all the particulars of his case. The New Yorker ran a nearly 12,000-word piece on Soering in its November 9 issue.

Two matters are now pending for Soering. He went before the parole board a couple of months ago for the 11th time and has not gotten a decision. “It’s very unusual for the parole board to take this long,” says Rosenfield.

The repatriation request has been pending before Governor McAuliffe for a long time as well, he says. “That’s not unusual because it’s a highly political issue,” Rosenfield says. “The governor is faced with a dilemma of either supporting the decision of Republican Governor McDonnell or Democratic Governor Kaine.”

A spokesperson for Kaine says, “When he was governor, Senator Kaine recommended that Jens Soering be transferred into the German penal system and never be allowed to set foot again in the U.S. He has had no involvement in the case since January 2010 and would not presume to advise Governor McAuliffe on it.”

McAuliffe spokesperson Brian Coy says there is no timetable for a decision. “The process is underway and we will make an announcement when it is complete.”

Correction 11/21/15: Elizabeth Haysom was convicted of being an accessory before that fact, not after.