"This case involves substantial evidence of Lovitt's guilt in the stabbing of an innocent person, and the jury had all of the facts when they considered the case," said Emily Lucier of the Virginia attorney general's office, which would not comment further on the case.
Starr argued that the jury was kept in the dark on other important points, including a medical examiner's statement that the scissors were too short to have caused the victim's deep wounds. The jury also knew nothing of Lovitt's "horrific" childhood, Starr said. Juries often recommend life in prison -- rather than death -- when shown evidence of childhood abuse, he argued.
The jury in Robin Lovitt's case was not told about several things, says Kenneth W. Starr, right, shown with Charles Bakaly during the 1998 presidential impeachment inquiry. Among those were Lovitt's upbringing and a report challenging the validity of the murder weapon.
(Gary Hershorn -- Reuters)
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"Every example in [Lovitt's] life was a bad example," Starr said. "Shouldn't a jury know that?" He added later: "As we all look back to the household where we grew up, most of us were loved and not abused."
Reflecting on his first case involving the death penalty, he said: "This is a moral matter. This is a decision by citizens to send one of their fellow citizens to death." It takes only one juror, he said, to decide. "There but for the grace of God go I."
A case cannot help but become personal when one man has been murdered and when another faces death, he said. At another point, Starr spoke of Lovitt's problems: "He needed to be drug-free, and now he is drug-free."
In briefs, prosecutors argue that Lovitt's background was not as harsh as portrayed, and they say that defense attorneys did not sufficiently document the abuse they say happened. They also dispute that statements from the medical examiner were improperly withheld.
Starr argued: "I think the death penalty is appropriate under very extreme circumstances, and this is a tragic situation . . . but this [murder] is not the kind of horrible, depraved, cruel, continual condition visited upon one or more persons that the death penalty should be reserved for."
The latest briefs for both sides total 167 pages, all of which Lovitt has read on death row in southeastern Virginia. He was not available for an interview at this legal juncture, but a visitor from Notre Dame said that Lovitt reads everything from novels by John Grisham to books on spirituality. Described as talkative and personable, Lovitt, now 41, is barber to many of the other men on death row.
Since Lovitt arrived five years ago, 19 men have been executed in Virginia. Last year, Lovitt made it beyond his first scheduled execution date. If the appeals court rules against him in the coming months, another execution date probably will be set. If other unfavorable rulings follow, attorneys said, he could be dead by summer.
Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.
