Va. Man Nears Execution in Test of Destroyed DNA

Starr himself has delivered courtroom arguments and prepared legal briefs. On Tuesday, he went to see Lovitt on death row. He found Lovitt to be "very warm, very human, extremely articulate," he said. "He was remarkably at peace."

In a clemency petition to Warner, attorneys made arguments about the evidence destruction, but they also asserted that capital punishment was never the right choice for Lovitt's crime.

"The death penalty should be reserved for the most heinous of cases," Starr said -- terrorists, criminals who kill multiple victims. "It can work effectively," he said, "where there is a very high degree of moral certainty, aided by DNA evidence."

Lovitt is not in the same league, Starr said -- a glimpse of which he got when he visited death row and observed the nearby cell of Washington area sniper John Allen Muhammad. "To equate Robin Lovitt's circumstances with that of John Muhammad is so appalling," he said.

To the Supreme Court, Starr and his legal team focused many of their arguments on Lovitt's trial lawyers, who they say erred in not presenting Lovitt's "horrific" childhood during his sentencing.

If just one juror had been swayed by the drugs and abuse he grew up with, Starr said, Lovitt would have drawn a life sentence.

"It only takes one juror to have his or her conscience moved and to say, 'I believe under these circumstances of this childhood, this background, that life in prison is appropriate," he said.

In several other courts, the attorney general's office successfully argued that the lawyers acted wisely in their decisions about Lovitt's background. One court agreed, calling it a "can of worms" that could have hurt as much as helped Lovitt.

Still, Starr remains passionate about the case. With evidence destruction, childhood omissions and a claim about prosecutors failing to disclose potentially damaging statements from a medical examiner, he sees "a constellation" of important legal issues. "When you take these facts together, one has cause to wonder, why the death penalty here?"

Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.