The liberal abolitionists have found a new tool:

Massachusetts governor names panel to draft death penalty bill



By Steve Leblanc, Associated Press, 9/23/2003 15:31



BOSTON (AP) Republican Gov. Mitt Romney said Tuesday he wants to craft a death penalty bill that will make it ''virtually certain'' that only those guilty of the worst crimes would be executed.

Romney named an 11-member panel of scientists, prosecutors and legal experts to write a bill that relies heavily on science to determine guilt or innocence.

Romney said the burden of proof used to sentence someone to death would likely need to be even tougher than the ''guilt beyond a reasonable doubt'' needed to convict a suspect of a crime.

''We want a standard of proof that is incontrovertible,'' Romney said. ''This is a new kind of death penalty ... just as science can free the innocent, it can identify the guilty.''

Massachusetts is one of about a dozen states without capital punishment, which it banned in 1984.

The panel includes U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan a former state prosecutor who has testified before the Massachusetts Legislature in favor of the death penalty and Dr. Henry Lee, a forensic specialist best known for his testimony for the defense during the O.J. Simpson trial.

Romney said he did not ask the members of the panel their position on the death penalty. He tried to deflect questions from reporters about whether individual members support or oppose capital punishment.

One of the co-chairman of the panel, Joseph Hoffman, said the group intends to craft a bill that will protect the innocent.

He said it is ''within the realm of possibility'' the panel could conclude such a bill is impossible.

That ''would be a very powerful statement to me and I would certainly be wise to take heed,'' Romney said.

Romney said he envisions using the death penalty only for the worst crimes, including the murder of a police officer, terrorist acts with multiple deaths or murders committed with ''extreme atrocity.''

The Republican governor faces an uphill fight in the Democrat-controlled Legislature, where support for the death penalty, which peaked after the 1997 murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley of Cambridge, has declined. The past four Republican governors have tried unsuccessfully to reinstate it. The Massachusetts House has traditionally opposed the death penalty, which was defeated by a 94-60 margin in 2001. The Senate has backed the death penalty, but has not taken a vote in several years.

Anti-death penalty activists say it's impossible to create an error-proof law.

''It is an act of arrogance to assume that this time Massachusetts will get it right when it executed Sacco and Vanzetti,'' said Joshua Rubenstein of Amnesty International.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put to death in 1927 after they were convicted of killing two people during a robbery. Many observers say the trial focused unfairly on their anarchist beliefs and immigrant status.

Death penalty supporters credit Romney for trying to craft a precise bill.

''(Capital punishment) is the only way as a society that we can adequately express our disapproval of some awful behavior,'' said Republican House Leader Brad Jones.

Federal prosecutors in Boston have asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to consider filing a death penalty charge against Charles Jaynes, 28, one of two men convicted of kidnapping and murdering Jeffrey Curley, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday. Sullivan would not immediately comment on the decision.

Jeffrey Curley was lured into a car by Jaynes and a second man, then smothered with a gasoline-soaked rag when he resisted their sexual advances. His corpse was found encased in a cement-filled tub in a river in Maine.

It would be the first time since the federal Death Penalty Act was enacted in 1988 that the death penalty would be sought against someone already serving a life sentence imposed by a state court in the same place, legal observers said.

Federal prosecutors have pushed the death penalty in other recent Massachusetts murder cases.

As Plymouth District Attorney, Sullivan asked federal prosecutors if Gary Sampson, who recently pleaded guilty to the 2001 carjack slayings of two men, could face the federal death penalty. Jury selection is under way to decide if Sampson will be executed or face life in prison.

Sullivan filed notice in federal court last week saying he intends to seek the death penalty for two men accused of shooting a third man at the Boston Caribbean Carnival in 2001.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley Conley objected, saying the death penalty is not an appropriate punishment for an inner-city homicide.