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INDIANA---re: impending federal execution
3 weeks before he is scheduled
to become the first federal inmate
executed in 37 years,
Oklahoma native David Paul Hammer has decided he
wants to live after all.
In a clemency petition
made public Tuesday, Mr. Hammer formally asked
President Clinton to
commute his sentence to life in prison without the
possibility of parole,
asserting that the federal death-penalty process
is "plagued by systemic
bias, disparity and arbitrariness."
The immediate effect of
Mr. Hammer's change of heart is unclear. He
previously waived all
appeals and asked to be executed as soon as
possible. A federal appeals
court granted his wish in early September,
and a federal judge set
the execution for Nov. 15.
Both Mr. Hammer's attorney
and a Justice Department spokeswoman said the
clemency filing does
not automatically delay the execution.
"Actually, nothing's changed,"
said Ron Travis, a Williamsport, Pa.,
attorney representing
Mr. Hammer. "The vibes I'm getting from the
[federal] Office of the
Pardons Attorney are that the Nov. 15 date isn't
going to go away and
that they are going to attempt to expedite this
[clemency review] process."
Mr. Hammer, 41, pleaded
guilty two years ago to strangling his cellmate,
bank robber Andrew Marti,
at the Allenwood, Pa., federal penitentiary in
1996. He vowed he would
not seek clemency. And he said he hoped opponents
of capital punishment
would not seek to intervene on his behalf in a
last-ditch attempt to
delay the execution.
In recent weeks, however,
Mr. Hammer welcomed a steady stream of visitors
to the federal death-row
unit near Terre Haute, Ind., all of whom shared
a common goal - to persuade
him to change his mind and fight for his life.
Some specifically expressed
concern that Mr. Hammer's execution could
hurt the cases of inmates
who are fighting their death sentences.
For example, Mr. Hammer
met with Houston attorney Gregory Wiercioch, who
represents death-row
inmate Juan Raul Garza. Mr. Garza's execution,
originally scheduled
for August, was delayed until Dec. 12 by Mr. Clinton
to give the Brownsville,
Texas, drug trafficker time to apply for clemency.
Mr. Hammer also was tentatively
scheduled to visit next week with Sister
Helen Prejean, a nationally
recognized death-penalty opponent.
"I think he's very concerned,"
Mr. Travis said, "about the potential
impact that his execution
could have on Juan Garza's situation."
Moreover, Mr. Travis said,
he believes Mr. Hammer's decision to seek
clemency was affected
by visits last week with his younger brother,
Martin, and other family
members, as well as the ongoing efforts of his
legal team.
An elated Martin Hammer
said his brother gave no indication during last
week's meeting that he
was contemplating the clemency petition.
"It was a total shock
to me," he said, "but it was a very pleasant
surprise."
The younger Mr. Hammer,
37, said he believes one reason his brother
decided to seek clemency
is that federal authorities were insisting that
an autopsy be conducted
after the lethal drugs are administered.
"It's bad enough. ...
He's wanting to pay society for what he did. Why do
they want to cut him
up and make him look like he's a little monster?
He's not. He's a good
person."
Mr. Hammer's lawyers have
15 days from Monday's filing to provide more
information supporting
the clemency claim. They also can request a
hearing before the Justice
Department's Office of the Pardons Attorney,
which will prepare a
recommendation for the president on whether to grant
clemency.
Mr. Clinton essentially
has 4 options: Take no action on the clemency
petition, grant Mr. Hammer
a pardon, commute his death sentence to a
lesser sentence, or stay
the execution.
Mr. Travis said Mr. Hammer's
legal team also hopes he will revive his
formal appeals in federal
court.
While in custody in Oklahoma,
Mr. Hammer was widely considered one of the
state's most notorious
inmates. He operated credit-card scams, said he
contracted the murders
of 2 men and used prison telephones to make bomb
threats, including one
that shut down the state Capitol.
The Oklahoma Department
of Corrections eventually shipped Mr. Hammer to
the federal prison system
to serve the rest of his 1,232 years of
punishment for 11 convictions
ranging from larceny to shooting with
intent to kill and kidnapping.
(source: Dallas Morning News)
The court, without comment Monday, turned down David Paul Hammer's argument that he should have at least one level of appeal even though he repeatedly sought to end all appeals.
Hammer's execution had been scheduled for last November until he sought presidential clemency and asked a federal court to reinstate his appeal.
No federal inmate has been put to death since 1963. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh now is scheduled to be executed May 16.
Hammer, a prisoner since age 19, pleaded guilty to the 1996 murder of Andrew Marti, his cellmate at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Hammer was serving a life term for a number of crimes when he tied Marti to his bunk and strangled him.
Hammer was sentenced to death in 1998. He filed an appeal notice that November but sought to withdraw it later that month, the 1st of several times he sought to withdraw his appeal then changed his mind.
He stated a preference for execution last August and the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed his appeal. In October, he sought clemency from the president and tried to reinstate his appeal. He filed an appeal with the Supreme Court in November.
In that appeal, his lawyers said he should not have been allowed to withdraw his appeal.
"The choice is not his alone to make," the appeal said, citing "society's interest in ensuring that it executes only those persons as to whom death is absolutely, legally warranted."
At least one level of appellate review is required even if an inmate waives it, the appeal said. "Absent such review, society cannot be satisfied that death is the legally appropriate sentence in this case," it added.
Justice Department lawyers said the 1994 federal Death Penalty Act allows death-row inmates to waive appeal, and the Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment does not require appeals in death-penalty cases.
(source: Associated
Press)
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - An inmate
facing the first federal execution since 1963 has
asked President Clinton
to spare his life.
Lawyers for David Paul
Hammer, 41, who dropped all his court appeals this
fall, filed the application
Monday with Hammer's approval, Justice Department
spokeswoman Gretchen
Michael said Tuesday.
Michael said Hammer asked
that his death sentence be commuted, but she would
not disclose details
of the petition, including what grounds it cited.
Hammer's attorney, Ronald Travis, was not immediately available for comment.
A con man so violent that
Oklahoma built him a special isolation cell with
steel doors and shatterproof
glass, Hammer is scheduled to die by lethal
injection Nov. 15.
The date was set by a
federal judge in Williamsport, Pa., in September after
a judicial panel granted
Hammer's request to drop an appeal of his death
sentence.
Hammer is on federal death
row in Terre Haute, Ind., where the execution
would take place.
A prisoner since age 19,
Hammer killed Andrew Marti in 1996 by tying him to
his bunk and strangling
him with a braided bedsheet at the Lewisburg Federal
Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.
Before the killing, Hammer
had built a reputation as one of Oklahoma's most
troublesome prisoners.
He was sentenced to more than 1,200 years for a spree
of kidnapping and attempted
murder that followed his escape from prison in
the early 1980s.
His misdeeds while in
state prison included credit-card scams and a telephone
bomb threat that shut
down the Oklahoma Capitol. He once used a prison
employee's credit card
to send flowers to the warden.
Hammer pleaded guilty
in 1998 to killing his cellmate. He initially refused
to challenge an execution
scheduled for January 1999, then changed his mind
and allowed an appeal.
He changed his mind again and asked to be executed as
quickly as possible.
In July, Clinton, a death
penalty supporter, postponed the execution of
another federal inmate,
Juan Raul Garza, until Dec. 12 so he could use new
Justice Department procedures
for seeking presidential clemency. In
September, Garza, who
is Hispanic, urged Clinton to commute his sentence to
life in prison because
of ``long-standing racial bias'' in capital punishment
sentencing.
Hundreds of people have
been executed by states since the Supreme Court
lifted a moratorium on
the death penalty in 1976.
The last execution carried
out by the federal government was 37 years ago,
when Victor Feguer was
hanged in Iowa for kidnapping and killing a doctor.
PHILADELPHIA (AP)
-- An Oklahoma man who strangled a fellow inmate at a federal
prison in Pennsylvania
may become the first federal inmate to be executed since 1963
after an appellate
court dismissed his death sentence appeal.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit
of Appeals ruled last week after David Paul Hammer pleaded with
judges to let him
die. Hammer has said the sentence is the only way he can take
responsibility
for his actions.
"After almost 23 years in here and all I've been through, I see this not as an end, but as a new beginning," Hammer told The Dallas Morning News in a telephone interview last week from the federal death-row prison near Terre Haute, Ind. "I don't live in here. I exist."
Hammer, 41, began serving a 1,232-year sentence in Oklahoma for convictions ranging from writing bogus checks to shooting with intent to kill to kidnapping. While in state custody, he masterminded credit-card scams and insisted he contracted the murders of two men. He also used prison phones to make bomb threats, including one that shut down the state Capitol.
Killed cellmate
He became so troublesome that a special 9-by-16 foot isolation cell featuring steel doors and shatterproof glass was built for him. Officials finally sent him to federal prison in Allenwood, Pa., where he killed his cellmate, Andrew Marti, in 1996 by strangling him with a homemade cord.
His lawyer argued that Hammer should be required to pursue an appeal and filed one on Hammer's behalf without his consent. But Hammer told appeals court judges via a video link that accepting the sentence was the only way he could take responsibility.
"My only desire is to have the sentence of death implemented expeditiously, and whatever process or procedure that achieves this result fastest is what I feel is best," Hammer told the court.
'Spoke with great intelligence'
The judges wrote in their 15-page decision that Hammer "spoke with great intelligence, logic and force, addressed the legal issues with considerable skill ... and was calm and in total control of himself."
Hammer told the newspaper that he expects to be executed in October or perhaps as late as November, ahead of Juan Raul Garza. Garza, head of a marijuana-trafficking ring in Brownsville, Texas, was sentenced to death in 1993 for three murders.
Garza, 43, originally was scheduled to die Aug. 5, but President Clinton granted a four-month reprieve so that he could plead for his life under new clemency rules drafted by the Justice Department for capital cases.
The last federal
execution was 37 years ago, when Victor Feguer was hanged in Iowa for kidnapping
and killing a doctor.
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