05-07-2008, 12:29 PM
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#333 (permalink)
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Premium Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 17,237
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This was written in 2000; since then, Valenti has had four more parole hearings that the families had to suffer thru. 
Quote:
Killers denied parole; Condon wants to space hearings
Published on 01/20/00
BY RICHARD GREEN Jr.
The Post and Courier
Triple-murderer Richard R. Valenti and double-murderer Charles Edward Blake were denied parole Wednesday, and Attorney General Charlie Condon wants them to wait five years instead of two for another chance at release.
"I really think it's an injustice for these surviving victims to have to go through these hearings as often as they do," said Condon, who was the Charleston solicitor who prosecuted Blake and tried to bring up old charges against Valenti in 1986.
Valenti has had seven parole hearings since he began serving two consecutive life sentences in 1974. Blake had his first hearing after serving 15 years of seven consecutive life sentences plus 355 years.
The state already changed the hearing schedule from every year to once every two years for violent offenders. Condon wants to increase time between hearings to five years for those who are serving a life sentence.
"Everyone I think supports keeping them in for life, so why have hearings every two years?" Condon asked after attending the hearings in Columbia.
"He did the crime; he should do the time, regardless," said Lucille Bunch Hopkins, sister of one of Valenti's victims.
Valenti kidnapped and killed Mary Earline Bunch, 16, Sherri Jan Clark, 14, and Alexis Ann Latimer, 13, and buried the bodies near his Folly Beach home.
He was convicted in 1974 of killing Clark and Latimer and sentenced to two life sentences. Prosecutors held back charges involving Bunch and nonfatal attacks on five other women to make sure the Clark and Latimer convictions were upheld, which they were.
After Valenti came up for parole twice, former solicitor Condon tried to resurrect the charges in 1986 that had not been pressed. A judge ruled too much time had passed. Valenti has confessed to those crimes, and the parole board considers them when he comes up for release.
Though the death penalty had been ruled unconstitutional when Valenti went to trial, prosecutors intended to seek it for Blake in 1983. Solicitors Condon in Charleston County and Joe Mizzell in Dorchester County settled for guilty pleas because of evidence problems.
Blake received five life sentences and 295 years in prison, all consecutive, for the rape and murder of Gloria Knight of James Island, and for 18 other charges in Charleston County. In Dorchester County, Blake received two life sentences plus 60 years for raping and murdering Robin Robertson Margiotta of Charleston and kidnapping and raping another woman.
Even if Valenti and Blake were granted parole, both likely would face proceedings as sexual predators, Condon said. That means they could be committed to mental institutions until a judge could be convinced they were cured.
Noncapital murder convictions now result in one of two sentences: 30 years or life, both without the eligibility for parole.
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Killers denied parole; Condon wants to space hearings
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