FREE DUSTY!

RICHMOND -- Convicted criminals would have more time to provide new evidence that proves their innocence under legislation that cleared the General Assembly on Wednesday.

The House of Delegates voted 72-27 to extend Virginia's 21-day deadline for submitting new evidence after a conviction -- the nation's toughest -- to 90 days. The state Senate approved identical legislation earlier this winter. The bill now heads to Gov. Mark R. Warner's desk.

The Virginia Supreme Court has been pressuring the legislature to ease the rule, proposing that defendants should face no time limit for requesting a new trial should they discover significant new evidence that proves innocence.

Many lawmakers agreed and criticized the extension to 90 days as a short-sighted measure that still would impose an unfair burden on wrongly convicted people.

``Innocence should always trump finality,'' said Del. Kenneth R. Melvin, D-Portsmouth.

A proponent of the legislation -- Del. Robert F. McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach -- acknowledged that even with a 90-day rule, Virginia still would remain in the bottom third when compared with other states' time limits.

But McDonnell said Virginia should be tough on crime. Those who come up with new evidence of innocence after the 90-day period still have the option of petitioning the governor for release from prison, he said.

The bill, SB1143, was sponsored by Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach. The 90-day rule could serve as a temporary solution while a legislative commission studies the issues for another year, he said.

Virginia's appeals process became hotly debated more than two years ago after several convicted criminals were released from state prisons after DNA evidence proved their innocence.

In response, the General Assembly last year passed legislation that allowed inmates to come forward at any time with DNA evidence that exonerates them.

Julius Earl Ruffin was released last week after DNA tests showed he did not commit a 1981 rape of a Norfolk woman who lived in Ghent. Ruffin had served 21 years in prison.

The House also unanimously passed legislation on Wednesday to give Marvin Lamont Anderson of Hanover County, who was wrongly convicted of rape and abduction, $750,000 restitution.

Lawmakers also voted 82-15 to change provisions in Virginia's death penalty law that allow mentally retarded people to be executed.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the state's law was unconstitutional.

Since then, lawmakers have struggled to define mental retardation,

The House of Delegates passed SB1239. The law bans juries from giving the death penalty to people who were diagnosed as mentally retarded before they turned 18, or who have an intelligence level far below the average and know their actions were wrong.

But the Senate believes the House's restrictions are too stringent. It passed a bill that doesn't require mentally retarded people to be aware that their offense was improper.

Lawmakers will try to settle their differences. If they don't, the state's law could be deemed unconstitutional.

McDonnell, who supports the House bill, said lawmakers have to be careful that they don't shape a new law that ``opens the floodgates for claims of mental retardation.''

``If a person has the ability to conform his behavior, I don't think we should treat him any differently,'' McDonnell said.

Reach Katrice Franklin Hardy at kfrankli@pilotonline.com or (804) 697-1580.