Va. Man Granted Stay of Execution

"We are hopeful that when the members of the court return in the fall, the court will review the important issues raised in Mr. Lovitt's petition and reverse the judgment of the lower court," said the statement from Kirkland & Ellis, which took the case on a pro bono basis.

In their Supreme Court petition, Lovitt's attorneys argued that with the increasing importance of DNA evidence, decisions in the Lovitt case "will have far-reaching consequences for the administration of the death penalty in this country."

Other courts had sided with the state attorney general's office, saying the destruction of evidence by an Arlington court clerk was not done in "bad faith."

The high court petition also focused at length on a decision by Lovitt's trial attorneys not to tell the jury about Lovitt's "horrific" childhood in a home with drug use and physical and sexual abuse.

The attorney general's office, supported by the lower courts, had argued that Lovitt's experienced attorneys had made a strategic decision not to introduce his background, which could have hurt as much as helped him.

Mary Dicks was discouraged about the stay. "I don't know what they're doing," said Dicks, who sat through the 1999 trial. "They ain't got the wrong boy. . . . If they got the wrong man, why did they keep him in jail six years?"

Dicks said she believed that Starr -- one of the nation's best-known lawyers -- had somehow played a role in the stay of execution. "I knew that Ken Starr man, when he came up here, [the courts] wouldn't do nothing."

Prosecutors had argued that Lovitt was high on crack when he was confronted by Dicks while trying to steal the cash register. Lovitt grabbed a pair of scissors from a container near the register and stabbed him six times, they said.

Two men walked in on the scene, with one taking the stand at trial to say he was "80 percent" sure Lovitt was the killer.

The other evidence against Lovitt included a jailhouse informant's testimony. Lovitt told police that he emerged from a restroom to see someone else in a fight with Dicks and that he ducked back in to avoid trouble. When he came out, Dicks appeared dead, he said, and he sought to leave quickly but then decided to take the cash register drawer, which contained about $200.

The drawer was found at his cousin's house, through some woods, behind the pool hall. The scissors were found discarded in the woods.