wfn.org | President asked to stop first federal execution in 37 years

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Nov. 27, 2000 News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.     10-31-32-71B{530}

NOTE: This is a sidebar to UMNS story #529.

By Ted Langdell*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - President Clinton is being asked to spare the federal
prisoner who could become the first person executed for a federal crime in
37 years.

Clergy members, including United Methodist pastor and civil rights activist
the Rev. James Lawson Jr., have signed a letter to the president with just
20 days before the lethal injection is set to occur at the federal prison in
Terre Haute, Ind.

A group called Citizens for a Moratorium on Federal Executions delivered the
letter to the White House. The group asked the president to halt Juan Raul
Garza's execution and all other federal executions, at least until the
Justice Department completes a review of the process that leads to the death
penalty.

Garza, of Brownsville, Texas, was convicted of three murders under the
federal "drug kingpin" statute. 

Citing a Justice Department report released in September, the Citizens for a
Moratorium group notes the geographic and ethnic disparities in who is tried
for capital crimes and sentenced to death in federal courtrooms.

"The survey of the death penalty authorization process by the Department of
Justice reveals that, among all the federal capital defendants against whom
the Attorney General has authorized seeking the death penalty, 69 percent
have been Hispanic and African American (18 percent and 51 percent
respectively), while only 25 percent have been white. The Department of
Justice has no data concerning the potential pool of persons against whom
federal capital cases might be filed and authorized. However, analogous data
does exist concerning state prisoners. Only 12 percent of all persons
entering the state prisons after being convicted of homicide are Hispanic.
Using similar data, 40 percent of all persons entering the state prisons
after being convicted of homicide are white. As the Attorney General has
recognized, these data indicate that minorities are over-represented in the
federal death penalty system."

In addition to Lawson, signers include Michael Rosier, president-elect of
the National Bar Association; Professor Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize
winner; John Van de Kamp, a two-term former California attorney general;
several Catholic bishops; two former U. S. senators; and entertainers Jack
Lemmon and Barbra Streisand.

"We're hopeful that this diverse group of individuals will have some impact
on the president," Garza's attorney, Gregory W. Wiercioch, told United
Methodist News Service. He said Garza "has accepted responsibility for the
three murders he was convicted of. Our clemency request is that his sentence
be commuted by the president to life without the possibility of parole." 

Earlier this year, Wiercioch formally requested that the Office of the
Pardon Attorney, a unit of the U.S. Department of Justice, grant
presidential clemency for Garza. "It goes to the White House counsel's
office, then to the president," he said. 

Wiercioch says federal statutes are not being applied uniformly. "We (the
attorneys for Juan Garza) have identified about two dozen cases more serious
than Juan Garza's case where the death penalty was not requested, and the
defendants were allowed to plead guilty to a lesser crime or crimes.

Garza's case was one of the first tried since the reinstatement of the
federal death penalty in 1988, Wiercioch said.

"All five Texas federal capital prosecutions in 1988 through '94 were
Hispanics accused of being drug kingpins," he said. "In that same time
period, 47 out of 52 nationwide were against minorities.

"The Department of Justice report says minority defendants are offered plea
bargain deals at half the rate of Caucasian defendants," he said. "Only 25
to 27 percent are minority defendants." 

Wiercioch said a 40-page report on the Department of Justice Web site
reviews all federal death penalty cases since 1988, when the federal death
penalty was reinstated. The Department of Justice study says Texas-based
federal prosecutors are more aggressive in pursuing federal death penalty
prosecutions, he noted.

Congress expanded the capital crime statute beyond drug kingpin convictions
in 1994. It now covers more than 40 other federal crimes, including killing
federal officials and certain employees, such as those killed in the bombing
of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, for which Timothy
McVeigh was sentenced to die. 

So far, no word has come from the White House on whether Juan Garza will
receive a lethal injection on Dec. 12. Said Wiercioch: "The president is
required to make a decision for or against the request, but there is no
timeline."
#  #  #
*Langdell recently served as interim editor of the California-Nevada Annual
Conference edition of the United Methodist Review. A 27-year news veteran,
he owns a print, video, audio and web production services company in
Marysville, Calif.

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United Methodist News Service
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