Man faces execution Thursday in slaying

A Jamaican national convicted of killing a Winchester police officer will be executed by injection Thursday night barring clemency from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

Edward Nathaniel Bell, 42, shot Sgt. Ricky L. Timbrook, 32, to death the night of Oct. 29, 1999. Bell was on probation when Timbrook, who had had run-ins with Bell before, chased him on foot in an attempt to arrest him.

Timbrook was shot just above his right eye from a distance of 6 to 18 inches. He was found near a fence, his torso leaning against a wall and his gun still in his holster. At the time Timbrook was killed, his wife was pregnant with their first child.

Kaine stayed Bell's execution last year during a brief, de facto national moratorium on executions as the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of lethal injection.

Later last year, after executions resumed, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution to consider Bell's appeal but then tossed it out.

Bell has always denied shooting Timbrook. His lawyers, in a 41-page clemency petition sent Kaine last month, say that evidence not considered by jurors or appeals courts "confirms that Bell's guilt is not established beyond a reasonable doubt."

J. Tucker Martin, spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, disagrees.

"Every court has found that Edward Bell is guilty of murder and deserving of the death-penalty sentence that was imposed by the jury. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Officer Timbrook," Martin said.

Bell's current lawyers point out that a federal judge ruled that Bell's trial lawyers performed so poorly during the sentencing part of Bell's trial that their performance did not meet minimal constitutional standards.

As a result, Bell's lawyers argue that mitigating evidence that justifies sparing Bell's life was never heard by the jury.

However, the same federal judge also ruled that the Virginia Supreme Court reasonably held that even had Bell's lawyers performed adequately, it was still probable Bell would have been sentenced to death.

His lawyers also say that Bell is mentally disabled and complain that no court has ever given Bell a hearing to prove his disability. They asked Kaine for a chance to present Bell's evidence of such a disability. The U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of the mentally disabled.

Kaine, who personally opposes the death penalty but who campaigned promising not to abuse his clemency powers, has let eight executions proceed while commuting one death sentence.

Govs. L. Douglas Wilder, George Allen, Jim Gilmore and Mark R. Warner commuted a total of seven death sentences.

Since 1976, when executions were allowed to resume, Virginia has executed 102 killers, second only to Texas, with 420 executions.

Bell's execution is set for 9 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt.

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .