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Ashcroft May Pull Rank on Death Penalty

By Jeralyn, Section Death Penalty
Posted on Wed May 28, 2003 at 08:31:57 AM EST
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Wisconsin banned the death penalty 150 years ago. That doesn't mean anything to Attorney General John Ashcroft, who is considering directing his minions to file federal death penalty charges in a Wisconsin kidnapping-murder case, whether they want to or not.

That's because the case is being prosecuted in federal court, where U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft makes the final decisions on whether to seek capital punishment. Since Ashcroft took office in 2001, he has overturned local U.S. attorneys' decisions not to seek the death penalty 31 times - often in places like Wisconsin, where the maximum punishment in state court is life in prison.

"It appears that the attorney general is trying to impose his personal beliefs on areas of the country that are less enthusiastic about the death penalty than he is," said Kentucky attorney Kevin McNally, who helps run the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project.

Every time U.S. attorneys prosecute an offense for which the federal death penalty is an option, they must report to the attorney general whether they wish to seek the death penalty and why. A federal committee reviews each case and may consult with the U.S. attorney and defense counsel before making its own recommendation. Ashcroft has the final say and may disagree with the U.S. attorney, the committee, or both.

"The feds have a lot of power right now to go in and take over cases generally prosecuted in state courts," said Lawrence C. Marshall, legal director of the center on wrongful convictions at Northwestern University. The exercise of that power becomes awkward when a local U.S. attorney is ambivalent about the death penalty or opposed to it, McNally said.

It also appears that the Justice Department is being less than forthright about its reasons for increasingly seeking the death penalty. We heard months ago it was to ensure racial and geographic parity across the nation. And a recent statement issued by the Department said:

The "process is designed to ensure consistency and fairness in the application of the death penalty in all U.S. attorney districts throughout the country," the statement reads. "The people involved in the death penalty review process . . . have the benefit of seeing the landscape of these cases nationwide."

But just two years ago, in another statement, DOJ said the opposite:

"Geographic disparities are neither avoidable nor undesirable," according to a Justice Department document issued at that time.

Wisconsin's Senator Russ Feingold wrote a long letter to Ashcroft about his intentions with respect to the death penalty back in March.

We've written about Executioner Ashcroft numerous times, including here, here and here. Actually, we've written about Ashcroft and the death penalty so many times it might be easier to go here and take your pick.

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