Federal Prosecutors Widen Pursuit of Death Penalty as States Ease Off

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Federal Prosecutors Widen Pursuit of Death Penalty as States Ease Off
By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY and GARY FIELDS
February 3, 2007; Page A1

At a time when many states are backing away from capital punishment, the federal government is aggressively pursuing -- and winning -- more death sentences, including in jurisdictions that traditionally oppose them. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors in New York persuaded a jury to give a death sentence to Ronell Wilson, a 24-year-old man convicted of killing two undercover detectives by shooting each in the back of the head. The decision -- the first time in more than 50 years that a federal jury in New York agreed to sentence someone to death -- marked something of a milestone for the Justice Department in its continuing effort to apply the death penalty more evenly across the country.

Today, there are 47 people on federal death row -- more than double the number six years ago -- and Mr. Wilson this week became the seventh sentenced in a state without a death statute of its own since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988. The ranks may grow in the months ahead, with several capital cases on tap in locales traditionally opposed to the death penalty.

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Congress in 1986 began expanding federal jurisdiction to crimes that traditionally had been prosecuted by states -- imposing mandatory minimum sentences in crack cocaine cases, for example -- and two years later expanded federal reach into capital cases. Still, it took 14 years before federal prosecutors under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft managed to obtain capital convictions in jurisdictions that didn't have the death penalty at the local level. In many cases, the Justice Department has asserted jurisdiction even though local prosecutors were prepared to handle the cases. In Puerto Rico, for example, federal prosecutors have unsuccessfully sought death sentences for four defendants since 2003 although Puerto Rico's constitution explicitly states that "The death penalty shall not exist."

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The rising count on federal death row comes as many states reconsider the death penalty or issue moratoriums on the punishment for a variety of reasons, including sloppy executions and exonerations of condemned inmates because of DNA evidence... Indeed, the rising count on federal death row in recent years has occurred while the number of inmates on state death rows has been falling. After a long rise, the number of people on state death rows has fallen to 3,344 last year from 3,593 in 2000, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an organization that tracks capital cases.

Eric Holder, a former U.S. attorney in Washington who was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, said that in the 1990s, he and then-Attorney General Janet Reno weren't as likely to override a local federal prosecutor who didn't think a crime warranted capital punishment. Overriding local federal prosecutors "was relatively rare during the Clinton years," Mr. Holder said. "Having both been local prosecutors, we really deferred to our U.S. attorneys' understanding that they knew their local situations." The Justice Department declined to comment on this point.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said concerns that federal capital cases were being clustered in pro-death penalty states led the Justice Department under Mr. Ashcroft to intensify its push for death sentences in states that traditionally oppose the punishment. This process is often difficult. In two recent cases in Washington, D.C, federal judges ruled out the possibility of death penalties. In New York, juries have opted for life sentences instead of executions in more than a dozen federal cases.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117047411173597172.html (subscription)

[saigon68]

1. Its operation "eliminate the negro"

Undated handout photograph of Ronell Wilson (second from left - black shirt with white stripes) at his sister Depetre's graduation.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. I predicted this

Feds bypassing State law by federalizing murders. Sonn you'll see something like, "he drank a Coca-Cola the night he commited the murder -- Coca-Cola is manufactured in another state -- FEDERAL PROSECUTION!"