The US Supreme Court yesterday turned down an appeal by Bermuda-born Tracy Housel to review his case despite a personal bid by a group of British parliamentarians for the Court to do so. The appeal was denied without comment.

But his representatives in Georgia are hoping the Bermuda Government will make an appeal to the Board of Pardons and Paroles in a bid to save his life - but revealed yesterday that a letter sent last year to Premier Jennifer Smith on his behalf had not even been acknowledged.

Housel, 43, has been on death row in Georgia since 1986 while the long appeal process wound its way through the courts. He is one of four British nationals on death row in the United States.

"Tracy Housel is disappointed by today's decision but he is hopeful and appreciative of the British government's efforts" to gain him clemency, said Housel's Atlanta-based lawyer, Robert McGlasson.

Mr. McGlasson said the Supreme Court's decision not to review Housel's case was the final step in the legal process to prevent his execution by lethal injection, and that his only option now was a plea for clemency to Georgia's State Board of Pardons and Paroles. Housel, who is a British national by virtue of being born in Bermuda while his father was a civilian worker at the US base here, was sentenced to death in 1986 for the murder of Jean Drew, a 46-year-old Georgia woman. Britain opposes the death penalty, and last month 106 British parliamentarians, the country's Law Society, and the Bar Council's Human Rights Committee signed `amicus curiae' (friend of the court) legal submissions on fair trial issues with the US Supreme Court in support of Housel's appeal. Mr. McGlasson said that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had also written to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles as well as its Governor asking him to commute the death sentence to a term of imprisonment.

"We want Mr. Straw and the British Prime Minister now to make personal representations to the various local authorities in Georgia as well as to (President Bush)," Mr. McGlasson said. " (Housel's) only hope lies in the extent to which the British Government will intervene."

Mr. Straw recently met in London with Mr. McGlasson, Housel's mother, Lula Mae Pellerin, and Labour MP and Queen's Counsel Vera Baird, following which Prime Minister Tony Blair announced in Parliament that the Foreign Secretary had written to the Governor of Georgia asking for the condemned man's sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment.

A British Embassy official in Washington said the United Kingdom's opposition to the death penalty was well-known, and that the British Government very much hoped Housel would not be executed. However, she said it was too early to say whether Mr. Blair would make a personal appeal either to the Georgia authorities or to President Bush to push for clemency.

Mr. McGlasson said Housel was responsible for the woman's death, but that the court had not taken into account a host of mitigating factors when sentencing him to die.

"These factors included that he was brain-damaged as a child, and suffered from an `hypoglycemic episode', a medical condition which rendered him psychotic, at the time of the killing," he said.

Meanwhile, the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Centre wrote to Premier Jennifer Smith on December 17, detailing Housel's plight and asking that the Bermuda Government make representations to the Board of Pardons and Paroles on his behalf. It was signed by former Bermuda resident and volunteer lawyer Gary Proctor, Ms Baird, and Adrian Fulford, QC. To date the letter has not been acknowledged, and attempts by The Royal Gazette to determine what, if any, action the Government has taken, or proposes to take, have been unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, Mr. Proctor says that any response from the Bermuda Government is now a matter of extreme urgency.

"I would love to speak with the Premier, and I am still hoping that the Bermuda Government will write to the Board of Pardons and Paroles," he said. "Time is of the essence. It is not irredeemable yet, but leaving it to the last minute with the Board is a big risk."

Explaining the steps which will follow yesterday's Supreme Court decision, Mr. Proctor said: "The District Attorney in Georgia will have Housel's death warrant signed by the same judge who presided over his trial. The judge has no option but to sign the warrant, following which it is up to the prison governor to set the execution date, which can be anything from ten and 20 days' time, unless Housel is granted clemency."

Georgia has executed five death row inmates since last October, among them men with whom Housel had close friendships. Ironically, the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles yesterday spared the life of psychotic killer Alexander Williams by commuting his death sentence to life without parole. It is only the seventh time the board has voted to commute a death sentence to life, and the first granted because of mental illness. Williams was due to die by lethal injection on February 20 for the rape and murder of a teenage girl in 1986 but was granted a stay pending examination by three psychiatrists, who found him insane.