Lawyer: Ashcroft May Have Broken Rules
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, March 30, 2001
WASHINGTON – A lawyer for alleged Russian spy Robert Hanssen said Attorney General John Ashcroft may have violated his department's guidelines when he suggested that the decision to seek a death penalty for the former FBI agent (see: Tell All or Lose All for Spy Suspect) may be based on the information Hanssen offers in a plea bargain, the Washington Post reports Friday.
On Tuesday, Ashcroft said that before the government made a decision on any death penalty, it would want to know what information "might be available to us in the context of a plea bargain."
Plato Cacheris, Hanssen's lawyer, in a letter to Ashcroft Thursday said the attorney general's remarks were "not appropriate." The Post said he cited the U.S. Attorney's Manual, which says: "The death penalty may not be sought, and no attorney for the Government may threaten to seek it, for the purpose of obtaining a more desirable negotiating position."
Cacheris told the Post that if the government sought the death penalty for his client, "the attorney general has made himself our first witness in a motion to dismiss this case at an appropriate time."
A spokeswoman for Ashcroft, however, told the Post her boss "was speaking of the death penalty in general and not specifically to the Hanssen case."
In his letter, Cacheris noted that Hanssen had not yet been indicted and his lawyers had not received any notification of the Justice Department's intention to seek the death penalty, the Post said.
Before seeking the death penalty, federal prosecutors "should give counsel for the defendant a reasonable opportunity to present any facts, including any mitigating factors ... for consideration," the U.S. Attorney's Manual says.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
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