The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of Arlington's only death row inmate, despite the fact that a court clerk threw away nearly all the physical evidence days after a state law went into effect requiring that it be preserved.

Robin McKennel Lovitt was sentenced to death for fatally stabbing Champion Billiards Hall manager Clayton Dicks - a 45-year-old single father raising two sons - with a pair of scissors during a 1998 robbery. But after sparing his life just four and a half hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection on July 11, the high court turned down Lovitt's case on Monday without comment.

Arlington prosecutors say that throwing away key evidence was just a simple mistake that would not have made any difference in the outcome. The Virginia Supreme Court agreed, ruling that the deputy clerk - who said he was just trying to "free up space" in the Arlington Circuit Court's evidence room - did not act in bad faith when he ordered the blood-caked scissors and other evidence destroyed.

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