Putting the Death Penalty to Work

By Viveca Novak

Attorney General John Ashcroft showed his softer side last week as a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman ("Top 10 Reasons John Ashcroft Would Not Sing on Our Show--No. 5: Too busy tapping my phones"). But Ashcroft isn't softening his stance on the death penalty. Sources tell TIME that the Attorney General overruled recommendations from the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, as well as from his own committee of lawyers who review death-eligible cases, and instead decided last week to seek capital punishment for Emile Dixon, an alleged drug kingpin. It's the 12th time since he took office last year that Ashcroft has ordered the death penalty when his local prosecutors did not seek it, according to the Death Penalty Resource Council, a network of lawyers who help capital defendants. He's easily outpacing his predecessor, Janet Reno, who in her last five years sought the death penalty 26 times when her prosecutors had not requested it, according to DOJ numbers.

Ashcroft's actions have become a particularly sensitive issue in the 12 states that don't have their own death penalty. Last month Marvin Gabrion became the first person sentenced to death in Michigan since the state banned capital punishment in 1846. The case fell under federal jurisdiction because the murder he was convicted of took place a few hundred feet inside national forestland. In Vermont, another state without the death penalty, Ashcroft two weeks ago rejected a plea agreement worked out by the U.S. Attorney with lawyers for Donald Fell, accused of a kidnapping and killing. Under Reno's policy, U.S. Attorneys could work out pleas in death cases on their own; now they must be approved by Ashcroft--for greater consistency, he says. In a recent Maryland case, Ashcroft also directed prosecutors, against their advice, to go for the death penalty against two murder defendants. "There appears to be an aggressive attempt to nationalize the federal death penalty," says Kevin McNally, a death-penalty defense expert. All this comes at a time when the death penalty is under new scrutiny. Last week the 100th death-row inmate found to be wrongfully convicted since capital punishment was restored in 1977 was freed from an Arizona prison. And a blue-ribbon report due out this week in Illinois is likely to cast more doubt on the fairness with which capital punishment is dealt out. --By Viveca Novak