NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, June 7, 2001

Though no federal prisoner has been executed since 1963, Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno approved seeking the death penalty against a number of defendants in the 1990s. There are 21 convicted defendants on federal death row in Terre Haute, Ind., and others are in the legal pipelines at other facilities.

If his lethal injection is carried out in Terre Haute Monday morning, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh would be the first federal prisoner executed in nearly 40 years. The next scheduled federal execution is that of drug kingpin Juan Raul Garza, set for June 19.

Garza, who was convicted of ordering the murders of subordinates, has asked that his sentence be commuted to life in prison because of alleged racial disparities in how U.S. prosecutors seek the death penalty against defendants.

Wednesday, Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee that there was no bias.

Bias Against Whites Is Not Racial Bias?!

"The Reno study concluded, and our analysis has confirmed, that black and Hispanic defendants were less likely at each stage of the department's review process to be subjected to the death penalty than white defendants," Ashcroft told the committee in prepared remarked.

"In other words, United States attorneys recommended the death penalty in smaller proportions in the submitted cases involving black or Hispanic defendants than in those involving white defendants," Ashcroft said, "and the attorney general made a decision to seek the death penalty in smaller proportions of the submitted cases involving black or Hispanic defendants that in those involving white defendants."

Ashcroft said in the cases considered by Reno - cases that qualified for the death penalty under federal law and in which a U.S. attorney recommended the death penalty - she subsequently decided to seek the death penalty for 38 percent of the white defendants, 25 percent of the black defendants and 20 percent of the Hispanic defendants.

The attorney general said the trend held true when perpetrator and victim were of the same race or ethnic group, or when they came from different groups.

Ashcroft said he was also announcing "some important revisions to the department's death penalty protocols."

Under regulations instituted by Reno, a particular U.S. attorney made a death-penalty recommendation to the Justice Department, the case was reviewed by a panel of career attorneys who asked for input from prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The committee evaluated the facts, the federal interest in the case, the likelihood of a conviction and the aggravating and mitigating factors. The panel then made a recommendation to the attorney general, who with her deputies reviewed the recommendation.

Ashcroft said he had been operating under the same protocols.

However, "to have greater consistency in all aspects of the application of the federal death penalty, I am changing the protocols to require prior approval by the attorney general before a capital charge may be dropped in the context of a plea agreement," Ashcroft said.

"I am also directing U.S. attorneys to report all potential death eligible cases to the department" - not just the ones in which they recommend the pursuit of the death penalty - "so that our data will be more complete," Ashcroft said.

The attorney general also said he was streamlining the review process in those case in which a U.S. attorney does not recommend the death penalty.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

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