- November 14

Illinois inmate will remain on Death Row

By Glen Elsasser

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court rejected Tuesday the claims of an Illinois Death Row inmate that he was sentenced by "a hanging jury" for the 1987 abduction and murder of Kankakee newspaper publisher Stephen Small.

In seeking a new trial, attorneys for inmate Daniel Edwards accused the prosecution of systematically excluding from the trial any potential juror who expressed reservations about the death penalty.

Such prosecutorial abuse, they declared, "has been used to mold a jury that virtually ensures the state's chances of imposing capital punishment."

During jury selection the prosecution and defense are each allowed a specific number of strikes to remove jurors who might be unsympathetic to their case.

In its response to Edwards, the Illinois attorney general's office, cited rulings in which the high court "found greater cause for concern in the prospect that jurors hostile to the death penalty may be acquittal-prone."

Earlier this year the Illinois Supreme Court denied Edwards' claims that the prosecution had acted unconstitutionally in jury selection.

In Edwards' appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, his attorneys asserted that "the evidence presented by the government was slanted and skewed to present a grossly distorted view of the truth of what actually happened." They also said:

"So successful was the lead prosecutor, an Illinois assistant attorney general, in procuring the conviction and sentence in this matter that not long after the petitioner [Edwards] was sentenced to death, the former prosecutor was given a position in a large Chicago law firm that represented the victim's family business interests."

Court records identify the former official as Michael Ficaro.

Edwards was convicted in 1988. After Small was abducted, he was buried in a box built by Edwards and held for ransom in woods near Kankakee, but the improvised ventilation system for the box failed and Small died.

In other action Tuesday, the high court let stand a federal court ruling that gives Oklahoman Mark David Johnson the chance for a new sentence.

Johnson was convicted of murder for his role in a 1991 fatal beating and burning of a mentally ill neighbor. Under Oklahoma's sentencing scheme--similar to Illinois'--juries are told at the end of the penalty phase that the punishment options are death, imprisonment for life or for life without parole.

In Johnson's case, the jury asked the judge if this really meant that he could never be paroled. The judge said this was an inappropriate question.

The 10th U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver threw out the sentence on grounds the judge's answer had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury's verdict.

Also Tuesday the Supreme Court granted former President Bill Clinton's request to resign as a member of the court's bar.

The court ordered that his name be removed from the roll of attorneys admitted to practice there. On Oct. 1 the court gave the president 40 days to explain why he should not be disbarred after being suspended from the Arkansas Bar Association.

Clinton this year entered into an agreement with the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct, surrendering his law license there for five years and accepting a $25,000 fine.

He was cited for misleading statements about former White House intern Monica Lewinsky in a sexual harassment suit brought by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee.