April 28th 2001

Ashcroft Sees No Halt in Executions

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday that he does not support a halt to federal executions after Timothy McVeigh's is carried out next month, arguing that those who have committed "heinous crimes" deserve the ultimate penalty. But the former senator said in an interview with The Washington Post that he would strive to ensure that the death penalty system is not discriminatory and would examine any new evidence about the fairness of capital punishment. "I don't have any plans to impose a moratorium on the death penalty," Ashcroft said in his office at the Main Justice Building in Washington. "We'll remain open to arguments and information and make sure that our justice system is fair. But when we have people who have committed heinous crimes, and there's no question about their guilt, I don't know any reason to suspend the imposition of an appropriate penalty." Ashcroft's comments represent his most wide-ranging public statements about capital punishment si!nce his bruising confirmation battle in January. He told senators he strongly supported the death penalty but would "make sure that we have thorough integrity and validity in the judgments we reach." The attorney general called capital punishment "a way to demonstrate the value of life" and to keep victims from taking the law into their own hands. He also elaborated on his decision to allow hundreds of survivors and relatives of the dead to watch McVeigh's execution May 16 via closed-circuit television, arguing that the scale of the crime should not negate their right to witness the final punishment. "If there were three victims, no one would raise a question about the fact that they have a right to actually go on site and be present," Ashcroft said. "Why should the magnitude of the crime somehow disenfranchise victims who feel the need?" But he also said that he would not wish to watch an execution in similar circumstances. "My family's been victimized," Ashcroft sa!id. "We didn't feel like we wanted to follow the trail of the people who were responsible. But for those who do, I respect that." Ashcroft's younger brother, Carl W. "Wes" Ashcroft, was killed by a drunk driver in 1991, and his wife, Janet, has said she fended off an attempted rape while in college. McVeigh, convicted of killing 168 adults and children in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, is scheduled to die by injection at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. He would become the first federal prisoner executed since 1963. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons is scheduled to execute convicted drug trafficker Juan Raul Garza a month later. Garza's death sentence for committing one murder and ordering two others was delayed in December, when former president Bill Clinton said the government should complete a review of racial and geographic disparities in the system before moving ahead. A preliminary Justice Department analysis released in! September found that minorities made up 80 percent of the 20 federal death row prisoners at that time, and 74 percent of the cases in which federal prosecutors sought capital punishment. A more detailed version of that analysis may be completed by the time McVeigh is put to death, Justice officials said. But Ashcroft said yesterday the evidence has not convinced him of the need for a systemwide moratorium. President Bush, who presided over 152 executions as Texas governor, has also said he opposes a moratorium. "Timothy McVeigh is probably the clearest example you can find," Ashcroft said. "I see no reason why you shouldn't impose the death penalty on Mr. McVeigh because there might be some debate about the penalty generally." The debate over the fairness of the death penalty has escalated since Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R) imposed a moratorium on executions after 13 of his state's death row inmates were exonerated. Nearly 20 other states are considering similar moves,! and a coalition of religious and political leaders from the right and left has called on the federal government to follow suit. Polls show continued public support for the death penalty. Ashcroft's strong opposition to a moratorium is a blow to the anti-death penalty movement, which is struggling to raise public awareness about racial and economic disparities and some defendants' access to competent counsel. "If there's a systemic problem, you can't decide case by case, 'We'll let this one go forward,' " Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said recently about the McVeigh execution. "It's not about one case. It's about a system that unfairly picks who lives and who dies."