21 April 2001

Judge Rejects Execution Of Md. Killer For 3rd Time

A federal judge overturned the death sentence of a Baltimore man for the third time yesterday, sparing the life of an inmate who has been awaiting execution for 17 years for fatally stabbing an elderly couple. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake ruled that Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Edward J. Angeletti erred in 1990 when he refused to instruct jurors that they could take into account the fact that John Booth-El was drunk in 1983 when he killed Irvin Bronstein, 78, and his wife, Rose, 75, stabbing each of them at least 12 times in their East Baltimore home. The killing took place just two months before a Maryland law was enacted, saying defendants no longer could claim that intoxication lessened their ability to distinguish whether they were committing a crime. Blake said Angeletti should have applied the law as it stood when the crime was committed, rather than at the time of sentencing. "Whatever the rules of the game are when you are arrested are the rules tha!t the state has to apply when you're sentenced," said Michael Millemann, Booth-El's attorney. Booth-El's case has been a series of legal cliffhangers, punctuated by glaring errors that time and again have renewed his hope of beating the death penalty or murder charges. He is Maryland's third longest-serving death row inmate, according to the Maryland Coalition Against State Executions. Booth-El was convicted of murder in 1984, months after his first trial was declared a mistrial because prosecutors failed to turn over required evidence to defense attorneys. Booth-El's death sentence was first overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 in a nationally recognized ruling that said statements by victims' families can unduly inflame jurors. Booth-El was again sentenced to death in 1988. But that sentence was overturned by Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals, because the judge refused to let Booth-El's attorneys tell the jury that he would soon be eligible for !parole. Booth-El was sentenced to death by a third jury in a 1990 hearing that prompted Blake's ruling yesterday. Angeletti, who is now retired, was the judge at all three sentencing hearings. In the 1990 hearing, Angeletti placed emphasis on the issue of alcohol, saying: "You are not to consider, I repeat, you are not to consider intoxication from alcohol or drugs." Millemann said yesterday that the judge's comments raised serious questions about fairness. "There are issues and substantial evidence that the judge was biased against Booth-El," Millemann said. The number of times the sentence has been overturned also should be considered, said Millemann, who has argued unsuccessfully that the death penalty has been sought against Booth-El, who is black, for "racially biased" reasons. "They are so desirous to put him on death row and execute him that they haven't slowed down to look at the rules of the game," Millemann said. Blake's ruling does not mean that Boot!h-El's conviction will be overturned. Instead, his case will be sent back to the Circuit Court for another sentencing hearing. Millemann, however, said he will eventually attempt to get the conviction reversed, too.