the night of 18 November carrying a metal box, which they opened with a screwdriver and split the money. Lovitt told police that he had seen a Hispanic man stabbing Dicks, and then took the cash box, which was lying on the floor of the pool hall. A forensic scientist testified that the cash box that was at the cousin's house came from the cash register at the pool hall. Trial and appeals Lovitt was arrested on November 24, 1998, and convicted by a jury of capital murder during the commission of a robbery on September 20, 1999. Lovitt appealed his conviction on the basis that there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime. He claims the entire case is based on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of witnesses, one of whom was a prisoner. Jose Alverado was only 80% certain that the man he saw fighting behind the counter was Lovitt. Witness testimony was contradictory and according to Lovitt and his lawyers, the evidence in the case just as easily points to Jose Alverado and Carlos Clavell being the murderers. Casel Lucas, the prisoner who testified is a drug addict, who had been convicted of a dozen felonies including attempted rape. It was not revealed to the jury that this was the fifth time that Lucas has testified in cases involving people he befriended in prison. On May 2, 2001, a new law came into effect in Virginia that required all biological evidence in capital cases to be sent to a state laboratory for safe-keeping. But less than three weeks later, Robert C. McCarthy, Chief Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court of Arlington County had the evidence in the Lovitt case destroyed. Two other clerks said they told McCarthy not to order the destruction of the evidence because it was a capital case. McCarthy told them that he thought he was authorized to destroy the trial exhibits after Lovitt's convictions were affirmed by the Supreme Court of Virginia. In October 2000, Lovitt's case was taken up on a pro bono basis by the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Kirkland worked with the University of Notre Dame's Washington Semester Program in pursuing Lovitt's appeals. Lovitt was also represented by the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center. When Kirkland began representing Lovitt, Kenneth Starr, currently Dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law and former United States Solicitor General,