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NORTH CAROLINA:Pope calls for clemency in NC death penalty case

Pope John Paul II called on North Carolina's governor Wednesday to grant clemency to a death row prisoner scheduled to be executed this month.

The request was the 1st from any pope to the North Carolina governor for clemency in a specific case, The Vatican said.

John Hardy Rose is scheduled to be executed Nov. 30 for the 1991 murder of his lover. Rose told authorities that he and Patricia Stewart had been in a secret love affair for several months. He confessed that he beat and choked her in Robbinsville after drinking a quart of whiskey and smoking marijuana.

"This appeal is not intended to ignore or condone the crimes this man has been accused of," said the letter, written by Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo on behalf of the pope, to Gov. Mike Easley, a Catholic. "This appeal also does not deny the sufferings caused by those crimes. It is rather a heartfelt call for mercy beyond justice. It is an appeal for life."

Cari Hepp, an Easley spokeswoman, said Easley's office had not received the letter late Wednesday afternoon.

"If and when our office receives this letter, the governor's office and his legal counsel will give it every consideration, as they do with any information ... regarding clemency," Hepp said.

The letter to Easley said the pope has called repeatedly for a moratorium on and eventual termination of the death penalty. "He has also increased his pleas for clemency in individual case, such as the present one," the pope's letter said.

Earlier Wednesday, a state legislator who has led efforts for a death penalty moratorium said he would try again. Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, said the state needs to examine whether the death penalty is administered fairly.

Luebke said that under a new state law mandating experienced capital defense lawyers the Rose defense team wouldn't have been allowed.

The case "is just another example of why we need a moratorium," Luebke said, adding that he would gather signatures next week at the legislature. A bill calling for a moratorium has been introduced but has gone nowhere in the record-long legislative session.

After Rose's conviction in 1992, another attorney discovered that Rose suffered from mental illness but no mental health expert was called at his trial. Rose also was forced by his father to have sex with his father's mistresses, the new defense lawyers said.