Reno Won't Stop Executions

Thursday, December 7th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” Attorney General Janet Reno opposed a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty in federal cases Thursday, despite new pleas for it generated by the impending first federal execution in 37 years.

With Juan Raul Garza's execution set for Tuesday, Reno and Justice Department aides prepared a recommendation for President Clinton on whether to grant the convicted murderer's appeal for clemency. A Justice official said a recommendation could go to the White House as early as Thursday.

Justice officials anticipated the department would suggest that Clinton again postpone Garza's execution temporarily, pending completion of new studies Reno ordered last September into the fairness of the federal death penalty.

A previous Justice study found racial and geographic disparities in federal death sentences. Garza's lawyers cited it in his bid for clemency.

Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder has almost finished collecting data on federal cases which could have been charged as capital cases but were not, and Reno promised to quickly review any new data available. But another study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics is unlikley to be completed until after the Clinton administration leaves office.

On Thursday, the Black Leadership Forum, a consortium of 26 civil rights organizations and leaders, appealed to Clinton for a moratorium on federal executions. Similar moratorium appeals have come in recent weeks from a citizen's group including former Clinton administration officials, the American Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and some members of Congress.

But Reno responded Thursday as she had in September to a proposed moratorium: ``I have not seen a basis for supporting it thus far.''

She added, however, that the federal death penalty law ``does not permit inappropriate discrimination based on race or ethnic background. ... We want to make sure, as we look at it, that race and ethnicity have not been an inappropriate factor.''

The White House said Wednesday that Clinton is seeking a way to address disparities in federal death sentences that the Garza case helped raise. The department found half the sentences came from a handful of states.

Clinton, a supporter of capital punishment, is awaiting a Justice Department review of why some regions impose the death penalty more than others as he seeks to make a decision in the Garza case, White House spokesman Jake Siewert said.

``As a supporter of capital punishment, he believes he has a special obligation to ensure that it's administered fairly and effectively in the federal system,'' Siewert said. ``We're going to look at that individual case. And at the same time, we've asked the Department of Justice to take a broader look at the geographic disparities and what can be done to remedy that.''

Clinton has been inundated with requests from here and abroad to spare Garza, a 44-year-old marijuana-ring boss convicted in Texas of three murders in 1990 and 1991. French President Jacques Chirac appealed in his role as president of the European Union, whose members generally oppose capital punishment. Pope John Paul II also sent a letter.

A Hispanic, Garza asked Clinton in September to commute his sentence to life in prison because of ``long-standing racial bias'' in capital punishment sentencing. Of the 19 men under death sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., only four are white; the rest are minorities.

Clinton has unlimited power to act in the Garza case: He could postpone the execution temporarily, commute the sentence to life in prison, issue a moratorium on all federal death sentences or decline to act and allow the lethal injection to proceed as scheduled on Tuesday.

Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., sent a letter asking Clinton to send a message that the United States ``will not hesitate to use capital punishment'' to rid itself of violent, murderous drug traffickers.

Meanwhile, a group of prominent death penalty opponents took a large ad in Thursday's New York Times urging Clinton to use the Garza case as the vehicle for a moratorium.

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On the Net:

Justice Dept. Survey of the Federal Death Penalty System: http://www.usdoj.gov/dag/pubdoc/dpsurvey.html