You know, he's got a point. If the Death Penalty is going to be used disproportionately and unfairly in some states, it's only fair (albeit in a sick, sadistic kind of way) that it be used improperly against defendants straight across the board.

Ask yourself this: how would you like to be given the Death Penalty for committing some terrorist act without being given a chance to have any sort of a real trial? That's where they're going with this.

Ashcroft Pushes Executions in More
Cases in New York By Benjamin Weiser and William Glaberson for the
NY Times.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered United States attorneys in New York and Connecticut to seek the death penalty for a dozen defendants in cases in which prosecutors had recommended against or did not ask for capital punishment, according to lawyers who follow the issue. Those are nearly half of all the cases nationwide in which Mr. Ashcroft has rejected prosecutors' recommendations in a death penalty case.

Mr. Ashcroft's decision to reject the confidential recommendations of
the federal prosecutors for 10 defendants in New York and 2 in
Connecticut is part of an aggressive effort to assure nationwide
consistency in decisions to seek the federal death penalty, federal
officials say.

Under the law, the attorney general has final approval on whether to
seek the death penalty in federal cases...

Mr. Ashcroft's decision in that case was disclosed to lawyers in New
York this week, just days after it was revealed that he had rejected the
recommendation of federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and ordered them to
seek the death penalty against a murder suspect on Long Island who had
already agreed to plead guilty in exchange for testimony against others
in a dangerous Colombian drug ring.

The Justice Department would not comment on Mr. Ashcroft's decisions
involving the latest three defendants, which were related to The New
York Times by a defense lawyer who was told about the matter...

Mr. Ashcroft's aggressive approach in the New York region was criticized
yesterday by lawyers who said the best way to eliminate geographic
disparities in capital punishment was not to increase its use but to
reduce it. No federal court jury in New York City has yet returned a
verdict for the death penalty since the revised federal capital
punishment laws were passed more than a decade ago.

"They want to set a consistent national standard for these cases," said
David A. Ruhnke, who represents a defendant in the new Manhattan case,
"but the standards they're using are the standards used by Texas
district attorneys running for re-election."

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/nyregion/06DEAT.html?ex=1045505503&ei=
1&en=5dcf9c44c474a7a3

The New York Times The New York Times New York Region February 6, 2003

Ashcroft Pushes Executions in More Cases in New York By BENJAMIN WEISER
and WILLIAM GLABERSON

Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered United States attorneys in
New York and Connecticut to seek the death penalty for a dozen
defendants in cases in which prosecutors had recommended against or did
not ask for capital punishment, according to lawyers who follow the
issue. Those are nearly half of all the cases nationwide in which Mr.
Ashcroft has rejected prosecutors' recommendations in a death penalty
case.

Mr. Ashcroft's decision to reject the confidential recommendations of
the federal prosecutors for 10 defendants in New York and 2 in
Connecticut is part of an aggressive effort to assure nationwide
consistency in decisions to seek the federal death penalty, federal
officials say.

Under the law, the attorney general has final approval on whether to
seek the death penalty in federal cases.

The cases include a new one in Manhattan against three defendants
accused in a narcotics trafficking case that involved a triple slaying,
lawyers say. Prosecutors had recommended against the death penalty for
all three men. There is no indication that those defendants wanted to
cooperate with the government or to plead guilty.

Mr. Ashcroft's decision in that case was disclosed to lawyers in New
York this week, just days after it was revealed that he had rejected the
recommendation of federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and ordered them to
seek the death penalty against a murder suspect on Long Island who had
already agreed to plead guilty in exchange for testimony against others
in a dangerous Colombian drug ring.

The Justice Department would not comment on Mr. Ashcroft's decisions
involving the latest three defendants, which were related to The New
York Times by a defense lawyer who was told about the matter.

Barbara Comstock, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in Washington
that when the federal death penalty law was passed, Congress intended
that it be applied equally and "in a consistent and fair manner across
the country."

"What we are trying to avoid," she said, "is one standard in Georgia and
another in Vermont."

Ms. Comstock said the attorney general was "committed to the fair
implementation of justice," and she cited the "multiple levels of
review" conducted at Justice Department headquarters and the local
United States attorneys' offices "to provide consistency."

"The people involved in the death penalty review process at Main Justice
have the benefit of seeing the landscape of these cases nationwide,
thereby ensuring consistency in U.S. attorney districts across the
country," she said. "The department is confident that this process
works."

James B. Comey, the United States attorney in Manhattan, also refused to
address specific cases, but said, "I have been a federal prosecutor in
Virginia and New York, two states with very different death penalty
traditions, so I appreciate the need for someone to take a national view
to ensure consistency."

He said decisions on death penalties were "often very close calls, so
the fact that the attorney general and a U.S. attorney reach a different
conclusion does not mean that one of them is out to lunch."

Mr. Ashcroft's aggressive approach in the New York region was criticized
yesterday by lawyers who said the best way to eliminate geographic
disparities in capital punishment was not to increase its use but to
reduce it. No federal court jury in New York City has yet returned a
verdict for the death penalty since the revised federal capital
punishment laws were passed more than a decade ago.

"They want to set a consistent national standard for these cases," said
David A. Ruhnke, who represents a defendant in the new Manhattan case,
"but the standards they're using are the standards used by Texas
district attorneys running for re-election."

Mr. Ruhnke said he was speaking generally of Mr. Ashcroft's approach,
and he declined comment on how Mr. Ashcroft's decision might apply to
his client, Elijah Bobby Williams.

Mr. Williams and the two other defendants, who will now face the death
penalty in Federal District Court in Manhattan, are in the same family,
records show. In addition to Mr. Williams, the defendants are his
brother, Xavier, and son, Michael. All three men have pleaded not guilty
to charges of racketeering, which include narcotics trafficking and
three killings.

Continued 1 | 2 | Next>>

page two

(Page 2 of 2)

The national total of 28 defendants in cases where Mr. Ashcroft has
rejected recommendations against the death penalty or where the
prosecutors did not seek it has been calculated by Kevin McNally, a
lawyer based in Kentucky, who helps run the Federal Death Penalty
Resource Counsel Project. The nationwide project provides information to
lawyers defending in capital cases. Advertisement

"They are attempting to bring the federal death penalty to areas of the
country like the Northeast that are less hospitable to the death penalty
than the traditional death penalty states," Mr. McNally said. "This is
not an accident or a statistical fluke. This is a deliberate decision to
require not a few but many death penalty trials in the Northeast and in
New York in particular."

The Justice Department does not discuss individual cases, and Mr.
McNally compiled his data from defense lawyers and other sources. The
Times was able to confirm the details of the cases in the New York
metropolitan area independently. Two other defendants who now face a
death penalty prosecution in Manhattan as a result of the attorney
general's directive are Alan Quiñones and Diego Rodriguez. Both men are
accused of torturing and killing a man whom they correctly suspected of
being a government informant, court documents show. They have each
pleaded not guilty.

Avraham C. Moskowitz, a lawyer for Mr. Rodriguez, said he believed that
Mr. Ashcroft was pushing for more death penalty cases in New York City
and its suburbs because the government has not yet obtained one there.
"I think there's a commitment to getting it done, to showing it can be
done here," he said.

The Rodriguez and Quiñones cases received widespread publicity last year
after a federal judge, Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court,
ruled in their case that the current federal death penalty law was
unconstitutional, citing the growing number of exonerations of death row
inmates through DNA and other evidence.

Judge Rakoff's ruling was overturned on appeal, and the death penalty
case against the two men is proceeding.

The other cases in the region in affected by Mr. Ashcroft's decisions
include one in Binghamton, N.Y. that involves three men who, according
to prosecutors, were cocaine dealers who killed a marijuana dealer.
Defense lawyers argue that one of the defendants is mentally retarded
and that executing him would violate federal death penalty standards.

In the Connecticut case, the Justice Department surprised lawyers for
two defendants in late January by notifying them that federal
prosecutors there would seek execution. They are charged along with
other defendants in the 1996 killing in Hartford of the leader of a gang
known as the Savage Nomads.

Mr. Ashcroft has also ordered the death penalty sought in a case in
Vermont, which is in the same federal appeals court district as New York
and Connecticut.

That case involved charges of a carjacking and kidnapping that ended
when the 53-year-old victim was beaten to death.