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Visit the CCADP's Audio/Video Archives: Media appearances, death penalty news reports and more

A Canadian Alliance government would hold a national referendum on reinstating the death penalty in its 1st mandate, the party's former justice critic predicts.

Alliance MP and whip John Reynolds says groups favoring a return to capital punishment could easily assemble a petition with enough signatures to compel an Alliance government to hold a referendum.

"Certainly, it would be a large number of signatures required for anything to go on a ballot," he said, but "I think you could probably get a million signatures pretty easily."

The Alliance has said it would allow national referenda on moral issues such as abortion and capital punishment if there were a strong enough level of public support.

The required number of signatures on a petition is not mentioned, but an internal Alliance campaign document uncovered this week pegged the level at 3 % of the votes cast in the previous federal election -- about
395,000 names, based on 1997 election results.

Alliance leader Stockwell Day yesterday said he thought that number was too low, but refused to say where he would set the bar.

Mr. Reynolds favors the death penalty for cases in which there is no doubt about the guilt or innocence of the accused.

"If you were talking strictly about (convicted killers Paul) Bernardo or Clifford Olson, I think you would have a majority say yes you should have the ultimate penalty."

If a referendum succeeds, Mr. Reynolds said, "We'll pass it in the 1st mandate."

Mr. Reynolds has already drafted legislation to govern the mechanics of executions. In a private members bill first read last November, Mr. Reynolds proposed death sentences for anyone older than 18 found guilty
of 1st-degree murder committed in "a heinous manner that defies human dignity."

His bill specified the injection of a barbiturate, sodium thiopental, as the means of causing death and even gives the exact wording of the death certificate for the prison doctor and witnesses to sign.

The bill also laid out rules for dealing with a pregnant woman sentenced to death, staying the execution until the child is born or the pregnancy ends.

Under Mr. Reynolds' legislation, an execution could be carried out only "at pleasure of the Governor General," meaning that the final decision on clemency, after an appeal to the Supreme Court, would rest at Rideau
Hall. Cabinet would also have the right to commute a death sentence to a life in prison.

Mr. Reynolds cautions he would not personally lead the public petition campaign for reinstatement, particularly if he held a cabinet post, but says "it's up to me to show that, if they've got the public support, we'll make this available to them."

But a petition drive might not have backing from some of the most outspoken activists on violent crime. Debbie Mahaffy, whose daughter Leslie was murdered by Paul Bernardo, say she'd prefer to see stronger corrections laws than a return to the death penalty. "I think there's a better way to do it," said Ms. Mahaffy, who now works for Ontario's Office of Victims of Crime.

Gary Rosenfeldt, executive director of Victims of Violence, said, "I don't think it's really in the best interest of Canadians to open up the issue." Mr. Rosenfeldt's son, Daryn, was murdered by Clifford Olson in
1981, and he thinks the death penalty would be a just end for his son's killer. But Mr. Rosenfeldt fears a petition for reinstatement will create a lengthy string of disappointments for families. Even if a death penalty
bill passed through the House of Commons and the Senate, he doesn't think it would stand up in the Supreme Court. The protracted appeal process would only deny closure to victims' families.

"It would sentence them to a life of sitting in court," he said.

"The bottom line is that we're not going to execute people in the country, and to try to reinstate the death penalty would bring nothing but pain and suffering to victims' families."

In polls, support for the death penalty in Canada runs steady in the 50- to 65 % range, but fades when respondents are asked to weigh it against stiffer sentencing.

"The support for the death penalty is a mile wide but an inch deep," said Tracy Lamourie, co-director of the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

"When you ask the follow-up questions -- if a life sentence was for life -- it goes drastically down," she said.

The last execution in Canada took place at Toronto's Don Jail in 1962. Two men convicted of murdering a police officer during an armed robbery were hanged literally back-to-back on the same gallows.

Lester Pearson's Liberal government eliminated capital punishment in 1967, with an exception for killing police officers and prison guards, and in 1976, a free vote in the House abolished executions completely.

Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney allowed a free vote on a motion to reinstate in 1987, but it was defeated by a 148-127 vote.

(source:  The Ottawa Citizen)

  THE CASE FOR... Death penalty proponents believe it is a fitting, just punishment for abhorrent murders; that it cuts the substantial costs of life imprisonment and keeps the public safe by deterring crime and ensuring convicted killers are never free to prey again.

  Shawn Howard, managing director of  the Calgary-based Canadian Justice Foundation, says capital punishment works as a deterrent by taking a strong, serious stand against violent crime.

  "When you take away the option for capital punishment, you send the signal to people that there is no crime
  in the country that is worthy of the ultimate punishment. It lowers the bar for every other punishment."

  It also protects innocent lives by ensuring those convicted of murder won't escape or be released to kill again, he says.

  The death penalty is not a human rights abuse; it is people who have terrorized victims and their families who are the "worst human rights violators," he says. The offender has a right to a defence lawyer, a fair trial, the right to appeal a verdict, food and shelter in prison, and a humane method of execution.

  Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day suggests the death penalty is a tool to prevent crime, since studies reveal a high percentage of murders are committed by prison escapees or parolees.

  "Overall, it would reduce the loss of human life," he says, adding that improved DNA testing acts as a safeguard to eliminate the possibility of executing an innocent person.

  Dudley Sharp, a Texas-based member of the U.S. organization Justice For All and a leading expert on the death penalty, says the debate boils down to one fundamental argument: certain crimes deserve the death sentence.

  "For particularly heinous crimes, life imprisonment is not as just of a sentence as a death penalty is," he says.

  But he also argues the benefits in other terms, such as costs and crime reduction. High costs of lengthy legal appeals are outweighed by exorbitant costs of caring for offenders imprisoned for life, especially when they become geriatric, he says.

  Carole Maheux, whose son Sylvain Leduc was tortured and brutally murdered, believes in the "eye for an eye" argument; that it's fair to take the life of one who has taken the innocent life of another. Reinstating capital punishment would also help balance a system that leniently favours criminals over victims, she says.

  "Why should they be allowed to live and possibly re-offend? With the death penalty, at least we know they won't bother anyone or hurt anyone again."

  THE CASE AGAINST... The death penalty is wildly expensive, ineffective in reducing violent crime and is fundamentally wrong, opponents charge.

  Capital punishment flies in the face of virtually all criminological expertise, says Robert Gaucher, a University of Ottawa criminologist.  Homicide is not a "huge" problem in Canada, and murder rates have dipped rather than risen since the penalty was abolished in 1976.

  U.S. studies show homicide rates are higher in states which exercise the death penalty, Gaucher says. It sets a poor example of showing murder is wrong, and has the undesirable effect of creating more violence.

  "The numbers support the esoteric arguments about violence begetting violence," says Gaucher, who compiled reports for the federal government when abolition was debated in the House of Commons in the mid-1970s.

  Even with improved DNA technology, the possibility of executing an innocent person remains -- another reason to keep death penalty off the books, Gaucher says.

 Tracy Lamourie, co-founder of the Toronto-based Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, considers capital punishment a barbaric abuse of basic human rights. She describes death row as "cruel and inhumane."

  "It has nothing to do with protecting society and everything to do with revenge," she says. "We don't run down the drunk driver. Why would we will kill the murderer?"

  The lengthy appeals process makes capital punishment a more expensive alternative to life imprisonment, Lamourie says. Legal bills for capital cases can cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

  Costs aside, Gary Rosenfeldt of the Ottawa-based organization Victims of Violence believes those extended appeals would only subject family members to more insufferable pain.

  "I think it would put the victims through a horrendous ordeal of having to attend and appear at appeal after appeal after appeal," says Rosenfeldt, whose son was murdered by serial killer Clifford Olson.

  Theresa McCuaig, grandmother of teenaged murder victim Sylvain Leduc, says the death penalty sends a mixed message about how wrong it is to kill.

  "I couldn't live with the guilt of contributing to another death," she says. "Revenge is not my goal. But I'd be the first up there yelling to have them put away for life."

  Randy White, Justice critic for the Canadian Alliance, says new criminal justice tools should aim to reduce crime, and doubts capital punishment would serve as much of a deterrent.

  "I don't know any first-degree murderer who had thought much about what their sentence might be," he says.

                                       On death row

  * Prisoners executed in the U.S. wait an average of 10 years and 10
  months to die.

  * Bucking a global trend to abolish capital punishment, more and more
  Americans are being sentenced and put to death, according to figures
  from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

  * In the U.S., 38 states and the federal government authorize the death
  penalty. Last year, 98 people were executed -- a 44% increase from
  the year before and the highest number in a single year since the early
  1950s.

  * More than 3,400 inmates await the death penalty in America; states
  which hold the highest number of prisoners on death row are
  California, Texas and Florida.

  * As of Dec. 31, 1998, the youngest death row inmate was 18; the
  oldest was 83, with the average age being 38 years. As of last year,
  the execution of prisoners 16 years old or younger was still permitted
  in a dozen states.

  * Americans have a strong appetite for information about prisoners on
  death row. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice obliges its
  citizens by offering details of final meal requests and transcripts of last
  statements on-line. Information about each condemned prisoner,
  complete with mug shot and crime data, is also posted on the web.

  * In the 1960s, support for the death penalty had waned in the U.S.,
  but by the next decade popular opinion had shifted again. In 1977,
  Gary Gilmore became the first person to be executed in more than 10
  years. He chose death by firing squad.

Now, the 29-year-old Dameron is resorting to a legal, but seldom-used, method of avoiding his death sentence.

The former Aurora man, convicted of the brutal killing and sexual assault of his 3-month-old daughter Rachel in September 1998, is tentatively exploring the possibility of serving a sentence of life without parole in Canada — which does not practice capital punishment — through an international treaty providing for prisoner transfers between countries.

Dameron claims he was born in a Toronto suburb on May 26, 1971, and lived in Canada for six years before he moved to the United States. At least one of his parents is American, which would give him dual citizenship, but details on much of his life before he was charged with his daughter's death in August 1995 are murky.

The Canadian Coalition Against The Death Penalty has listed a profile of Dameron on its Web site. The CCADP tries to help Canadian citizens on Death Rows around the world fight their sentences with whatever tools are available.

                                                            Wounds reopened
The family of Cynthia Michniewicz, Rachel's mother, was shocked to hear of Dameron's activities. The victim's step-grandmother issued a statement Friday expressing dismay at even the slim possibility of Dameron skirting the death penalty.

"Unfortunately for the family, it's big news, and I guess we're trying to prepare for more publicity in light of this," she said. "We haven't really spoken out because it's incredibly hard, but when it comes to something like this, he needs to stay here and take his punishment. For him to be executed does not punish him nearly enough, because
 Rachel can never be brought back.

"Unfortunately, he cannot die in the same horrifying way that Rachel did, but even that would not be enough, because she was a helpless, defenseless child. The family just feels very strongly that he needs to remain here and die here."

 Tracy Lamourie, co-founder of the CCADP, said her organization urges the Canadian government to look at the cases of convicted Canadians in other countries to make sure they had fair trials and appeals and adequate representation. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976.

CCADP formed in May 1998 and immediately proposed a boycott of Texas when the state sought to go ahead with the 1999 execution of Canadian citizen Stanley Faulder.

 Faulder was convicted of killing a wealthy Texas oil heiress in 1975 and was executed despite several appeals and court-ordered stays sought by Canada and various advocacy groups, including the CCADP. He was the first Canadian executed in the U.S. since 1952.

 If he proves his citizenship, Dameron would become the third known Canadian currently on Death Row in the U.S.

Dameron apparently first became involved with the CCADP when he tried to get onto a Web page list for Death Row inmates in the United States. He casually mentioned he was born in Canada, and the CCADP told him to at least look into proving his citizenship.

Lamourie, who said that paperwork Dameron was asked to provide so the CCADP could look for his Canadian birth records arrived Friday at the organization's Toronto headquarters, said the CCADP is not interested in helping Dameron get away without punishment.

Noting that Illinois has placed a indefinite moratorium on the death penalty, Lamourie understands that Dameron has a reprieve.

However, if Dameron applied for a prisoner transfer to Canada, "that's something that we would have to support," Lamourie said. "If it came down to that or the death penalty, then I would want him to be sent up here. We would implore our government to do everything they can to make sure that he does not receive the death penalty."

                                                                  Preliminary steps
The Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, ratified in 1985 and signed by 48 countries and their territories, provides for the transfer of foreign prisoners to their home countries if certain conditions are met.

The overriding conditions are the likelihood of rehabilitation if the prisoner is extradited, the convict's ties to each country and the consent of both countries and the inmate.

The Canadian government likely would seek life in prison without parole for inmates in Dameron's position as an alternative sentence, though it is not known what would happen in Dameron's case specifically.

 Canada's Bureau of Foreign Affairs said the Canadian government has been known to aggressively take up the cause of citizens in line for execution in other countries, on the grounds that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.

The Canadian Consulate in Chicago said they have not yet received an application from Dameron seeking a transfer, likely because his citizenship is not yet established.

Officials from Pontiac Correctional Center, where Dameron is incarcerated, were not available Friday to confirm if Dameron had applied for an initial transfer application, as he is required to do to get the extradition process started.

Several sources said that Dameron's quest is unlikely to succeed. The high-profile case received national attention because of the unusually heinous nature of the offense.

Rachel's body, stuffed in a bowling bag and placed in an upstairs closet of Dameron's home in the 400 block of North Union Street in Aurora, was found by Aurora police on Aug. 30, 1995. Dameron had initially flagged down a patrol car and said his daughter had been abducted from his front porch.

 The Kane County coroner's office concluded three days later that Rachel had injuries and fractures to her arms, legs, back, spine and head. It also appeared the baby had been sexually assaulted, according to the coroner's office.

 Dameron was convicted of killing Rachel on Sept. 17, 1998, and was sentenced to death by now-retired Kane County Judge John Petersen almost three weeks later. Dameron has declared on several Web sites and in trial testimony that he accidentally dropped Rachel down a flight of stairs in an alcohol- and drug-induced stupor.

                                                                  Possible, not likely
 The U.S. Justice Department said it is theoretically possible that Dameron could win extradition if he filed for the transfer, but Colleen Griffin, an staffer at the Illinois Attorney General's office, said she does not see it happening.

"The U.S. Justice Department would not do it because they give deference to the state the prisoner is incarcerated in on whether they will allow it or not," Griffin said. "I don't think they take it upon themselves to do that."

 Griffin cited a nondeath-penalty case she worked on where the convict wanted a transfer to the United Kingdom. She said her office was inclined to grant the transfer, but Britain had reservations because they did not have a comparable penalty for the crime committed, so they didn't take him.

"I don't see any way that the state would extradite him to a country where he would serve less of a sentence than he has here," Griffin said. "If we abolished the death penalty here, that is the only climate change I could see here where he would have a chance."

 There has not been a public outcry for further appeals of Dameron's case, and it appears he has been decidedly alone until recently in proclaiming his innocence. Even so, the CCADP's Lamourie said her organization does not look at the crime; it looks at the morality of the death penalty.

"We look at it as a human rights issue, not a law-and-order issue," she said. "We want to take a lot of extra care, because in (Faulder's) case there were not a lot of things that should have been done that were not done, so we're just making sure."

Local law-enforcement officials find the prospect of Dameron's release distasteful but remote. Kane County State's Attorney David Akemann said Dameron would have too many hurdles to clear, and Aurora Police Chief Larry Langston said the convict likely will stay put.

"This was an extremely heinous crime, and being aware of his dual citizenship, he was afforded all the rights given a U.S. citizen, and he was tried, convicted and sentenced, just like it would be with any citizen," Langston said. "Certainly, the issue of his citizenship status is something that would be handled between the governments of the two countries."

The wounds of Cynthia Michniewicz's family have yet to heal and may never disappear, the victim's step-grandmother said. Rachel Dameron and what her father did to her needs to be remembered in the equation, she said.

 "Nobody was there to protect Rachel," she said. "Why should the Canadian law be there to protect Tony? He has lost all his rights. It should be done and over. He was given a fair trial; now, he's got to take it.

"We're in for another battle, but someone has got to fight for Rachel." You can contact

By Brian Shields at (630) 844-5882 or send e-mail to brian.shields@copleypress.com.

Jarvis is a Buddhist who wants to convey the peace he's found through meditation. Richard would like to show you his American Indian inspired art work. Morris is seeking "ladies for friendship."

All 3 are using the Internet to get their message out. And they have something else in common. They're all prisoners on San Quentin's death row - part of a growing inmate-Internet connection.

Prisoners are still one step behind the digital revolution; no state allows them to go online directly and they need a third party, often a commercial service, to post their material.

Still, their Web presence is substantial; type "prison inmates" into one of the larger search engines and scores of sites bounce back - everything from the come-hither jailbabes.com to the no-nonsense Prison Legal News.

While victims' rights advocates are furious about prison postings, others argue that the Internet provides a crucial link to a closed-off world.

"Most of these people do not have access to a lawyer. This is really their only way to reach out and get help," says Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. "There will be some people
that this will be the way they make contact with the free world and I think it will contribute to correcting some injustices."

In 1996, it was news when mainstream media discovered that Dean Philip Carter, on California's death row for killing 4 women, was posting a column "Dead Man Talkin"' with the help of a San Francisco disc jockey.

Today, Carter's column is available in 6 languages  "Un homme mort vous parle," is the French version and is one of scores of death row journals.  The father of one of Carter's victims has his own site, "Justice Against
Crime Talking," that includes a link to Carter's site - a photograph of a burro.

Many inmates take to the Internet to plead their case; several sites focus on Philadelphia death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose case is a rallying point for anti-death penalty forces. Others offer an insider's
view; Prison Legal News, a 10-year-old monthly edited by Washington state inmate Paul Wright, has a circulation of 3,500.

Wright went to prison in 1987, long before "homepage" was a household word. He likens the Internet access made available to inmates to "sitting beside the information superhighway watching the traffic go by."

"This is where communications are going. This is, for example, where 100 years ago, people would have said, well, why should prisoners have access to telephones?" said Wright, speaking by telephone from the prison where
he is serving a 25-year sentence for murder. "Having contact with the outside world ... gives us a human face as opposed to the caricature that dominates the media image."

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the new cellblock communications are prison personal ads, some of which have led to wedding vows. While inmate penpals are nothing new, the advent of Web sites featuring
pictures and glowing come-ons riles victims' advocates.

"For them to have access to the general public is outrageous," said Susan Fisher of a Sacramento-based Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau.

Often, the pitches are singularly lacking in details, such as the request for correspondence by San Quentin death row inmate Morris Solomon that describes him as "romantic, and loves to meet people" but does not
mention the 6 women he murdered.

"I don't necessarily think this is a First Amendment issue. I think that this is a truth-in-advertising issue," says Fisher.

Inmate advocates say prisoners do have a free speech right to communicate via Internet. Beyond that, they argue, its counterproductive to keep prisoners cut off from a world to which many will return.

"Prison is the punishment. It isnt the starting point," says Charles Sparks, an Ohio man who runs a Web site called Penn-Pals which has signed up 1,800 inmates across the country over the past 5 years.

Sparks, who began Penn-Pals as a result of his own correspondence with a friend in prison, said he runs the site because he believes there are decent people behind bars and wants to serve as an antidote to what he
views as an increasingly hostile attitude on the part of society toward prison inmates.

In California, which has the nation's largest prison system, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Margot Bach says officials cant ban prisoners from communicating, although guards censor the mail and monitor inmate bank accounts for signs that someone has fallen for a scam.

Arizona lawmakers have banned inmates from posting messages on the Internet through third-party connections, but Bright dismissed that as unconstitutional and impractical  "like trying to tell Niagara Falls not to flow."

Among those on the Web is death row inmate Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped and killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma in 1993. The site, courtesy of a Canadian anti-death penalty group, features
photographs of Davis, pictures of his hand-painted craft items and a rambling letter inviting correspondence.

Marc Klaas doesn't want to share the Web with his daughter's killer.

"These guys ... have been taken out of society because we're trying to deny them access and influence," he said.

Also writing from San Quentin is Jarvis Masters, who was sent to the regular prison population there for armed robbery in 1981. He was sentenced to death after being convicted in the 1985 killing of a guard.
His supporters say they're sorry the guard died but they believe Masters wasn't involved.

Masters is in a maximum security section of death row - no phones, limited visits. His writings have been beamed across the world - essays about becoming a Buddhist, trying to meditate on death row, sending a fellow inmate gifts of tobacco rolled up in photocopied pages of Buddhist teachings.

"Writing has been his way to get out of prison - that and meditation," says Melody Ermanchild Chavis, a private investigator working on Masters' case. "In his book, he has said whether he lives or dies he wants people
to understand he was a human being with feelings and thoughts."

Barbara Burchfield, the officer's widow, takes a different view.

"His thoughts, his feelings don't count anymore as far as I'm concerned," she said. "They were voided out when he was convicted."

On the Net:
http://www.pennpals.org/
http://www.prisonlegalnews.org/
Mark Klaas child advocacy group: http://www.klaaskids.org
California state prisons site, http://www.cdc.state.ca.us/       http://www.freejarvis.org/
(source:  APB News)    ©Copyright 2000 APB Online

2000 manager & impresal

Il volontariato attivo passa dal Web

Sono in continuo aumento le associazioni non profit che si servono di Internet per dare maggiore risonanza alla loro attività. Nel mare di informazioni disponibili in Rete ci sono le grandi associazioni come l'Avis
(www.avis.it) o come l'Arci (www.arci.it) accanto a quello di enti minori, come il Centro torinese di solidarietà (www.arpnet.it) che opera nel campo della tossicodipendenza o la Bottega del mondo di Venezia
(www.bottegadelmondo.venezia.it) che si occupa di commercio equo e solidale.

Ma l'inserimento di un sito su Internet, oltre a offrire la possibilità di rendere visibile la propria organizzazione e il proprio operato, può rappresentare anche l'occasione per coinvolgere, in un volontariato attivo
(in questo caso, interattivo), i navigatori più sensibili.

In Italia, lo scorso mese è nato il sito «www.angeli-onlus.org», un portale dedicato alla cultura e alla comunicazione sociale. Una sorta di riferimento online per tutti coloro che hanno a che fare con problemi quali la droga, le carceri, l'handicap, gli anziani, le adozioni o l'emarginazione. L' iniziativa nasce per fornire agli utenti della Rete, attraverso link con associazioni del terzo settore, la possibilità di approfondire tematiche
specifiche. Il sito garantisce anche un aiuto in linea che, grazie alla collaborazione di esperti, fornirà risposte via Web o attraverso la posta elettronica ai quesiti sollevati dai navigatori.

Negli Stati Uniti è in rapida evoluzione il "virtual volunteering" che consente, a chiunque, di destinare le proprie capacità e il proprio tempo libero a un'attività di supporto di enti impegnati in problematiche sociali
senza scopo di lucro.

L'idea di "fare del bene", comodamente seduti alla propria scrivania, ha solleticato non poco gli americani e ha raccolto notevoli consensi soprattutto fra i giovani, entusiasti dell'incredibile nuova applicazione di
questo potente mezzo tecnologico.

E proprio ai ragazzi è dedicato il programma realizzato dal National lekotek centre compuplay summer camp and compuclub (www.lekotek.org) che fornisce un 'adeguata preparazione informatica a quanti di loro, anche disabili,
vogliano impegnarsi in un'attività di risposta ai quesiti sul computer, posti dai loro coetanei.

Altra iniziativa degna di nota è quella della Starbright Foundation (www.starbright.org), fondata da Steven Spielberg. L'organizzazione si rivolge ai ragazzi affetti da gravi patologie, per fornire loro un qualificato sostegno psicologico, dettagliate notizie mediche e semplice divertimento attraverso i collegamenti interattivi.

A un filone diverso, invece, appartiene quell'attività che, attraverso la posta elettronica, mette in comunicazione un determinato ente e gli utenti della rete. Un sito molto particolare, in questa attività, è il Canadian coalition against the death penalty (www.ccadp.org) i cui volontari, oltre a mantenere contatti con i detenuti, si fanno portavoce delle loro condizioni di prigionia e delle loro necessità e forniscono informazioni agli studiosi
della materia.

Ba.D.

http://www.ilsole24ore.it/sole_html/settimanale.Mon/LUNEDI/_manager___impresa_l/C.htm

The above article in Italian is about how voluntary groups and non-profit organisations are getting their message out via the web. The examples include several Italian organisations, as well as Spielberg's 'Starbright Foundation' and finally... CCADP.   The last paragraph (concerning CCADP) roughly reads:
"Another category includes those activities which use e-mail to put a particular group in touch with net users.
A very unusual site which falls into this category is that of the Canadian coalition against the death penalty (www.ccadp.org) whose volunteers, as well as maintaining contact with the prisoners, speak out about the conditions in which they are held and of their needs, providing information to researchers in this field."

                     Conspicuous by its absence at the Republican  convention this past week was any discussion of the death penalty. Once a major stump issue for GOP leadership aspirants, capital punishment has been relegated to the political badlands. In the last six months,several  luminaries in the Republican universe -- including William F. Buckley, George F. Will, R. Emmett Tyrell and the Rev. Pat Robertson -- have, after  many years of supporting it, questioned      the wisdom of the death penalty. A cover story (by the essayist Carl M. Cannon) subtitled  "a  conservative case against capital punishment" appeared in June in the National Review, the mainstay of American conservatism. In January,  George Ryan, the Republican governor of Illinois and a long-time death
 penalty enthusiast, declared a state moratorium on capital executions,pending an investigation of the state's judicial system. Pat Robertson, the televangelist, then called for a nation-wide moratorium. In  Oregon, Mark Hatfield, a former Republican senator, is leading a movement to repeal executions. In May, the conservative New Hampshire legislature voted to abolish capital punishment, a move that was later vetoed by the state's governor.

The death penalty is mentioned just once in the 2000 Republican platform, and not as a tool of retribution, but one of deterrence.   "Within proper federal jurisdiction, the Republican Congress has enacted legislation for an effective deterrent death penalty," it states. This softer view of capital punishment among today's conservatives is a harbinger of changing attitudes across the political spectrum.      How to explain what writer, historian and death-penalty opponent Garry Wills calls the "the Great Reconsideration?"  The immediate catalyst for Gov. Ryan's moratorium was an investigative series in The Chicago Tribune late last year. Rifling through the state's  285 capital trials since 1977, the Tribune documented an astonishing number of disbarred defense counsel, lying prosecutors, pseudo-scientific evidence, and corrupt informants. Another just-published report, by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., entitled "Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases," by Professor James Liebman and others at the Columbia University Law School, found that, for the last two decades, courts have found "serious, reversible error" in a large fraction of the cases they reviewed. (Contrary to some press reports, the data do not show that any innocent person had ever been put to death). These errors, the report claimed, sometimes involved incompetent defence attorneys (some were drunk; others fell asleep), many of whom withheld key evidence from juries. The impact of these reports was compounded by a nation-wide
Gallup poll in February showing that U.S. public support for the death penalty had dropped from 80% a few years ago to 66% today, the lowest level in 19 years. Another poll, in Texas, which runs a busy death row, registered
a sudden 18% decline in public support for capital punishment.   Opposition to the death penalty has long been fuelled by what some see as the deeply embedded inequity of the capital punishment system -- the combined impact of systemic racism   and poverty and corruption and politics. These factors led the late Harry Blackmun,
 liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice, to turn his back on capital punishment at the end of his career when he declared himself free, at long last, from "the machinery of death."   But for many of the new converts there appears to be a deeply religious force animating their re-evaluation of the death penalty.  Patrick Fagan, a devout Catholic who is also an expert in corrections policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C., said that until three years ago, he had "no problems with the death penalty." But on September 8, 1997, the Vatican issued a new and definitive Latin edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It states that the death penalty is theoretically permissible in instances when it is "the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor," but says that such circumstances are"practically nonexistent" in today's world, in view of the resources  available to governments to restrain convicted criminals from committing violent acts.   Before this exegesis, according to Mr. Fagan, the Church said "it was permissible for the state for someone to take away someone's life after that person has essentially forfeited it, assuming due process and all the rest, because of serious crimes. But the Pope was now going one [step] further. He essentially states that, in modern economies, where the cost of life imprisonment [for murderers]
is something that the economies can bear, the argument for the death penalty no longer holds the same weightthat it held before, and that Catholics should be pushing for its elimination." Last year, when the Catechism went into wide circulation, the Rev. Joseph A. Fiorenza, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said: "We oppose the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of heinous crimes,but for what it does to all of us: it offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life."

The United States is obviously capable of swallowing the financial costs of life imprisonment for murderers. Nine states in the past six years have begun to sentence criminals to life in prison without chance of parole, raising the total number of states with this sentencing option to 42, out of a possible 50 states. But Deal Hudson, an advisor to presidential candidate George W. Bush on Catholic issues and the editor of Crisis magazine, a conservative monthly, says any evidence that the United States is ready to embrace life without parole as an alternative to capital punishment is equivocal.

"That question isn't easy to answer," Mr. Hudson said. "There are a significant number of convicted murderers who return to the street and commit other crimes. So I don't think it's as clear an assumption as the Pope has asserted."

Has the conservative rethink of the death penalty seeped into Canada? Not according to John Reynolds, the Justice Critic for the Canadian Alliance Party (West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast). Public support for capital punishment in Canada has hovered historically at around 50% to 60%, and Mr. Reynolds believes that support to be rock solid. "I think you see a bit more reconsideration] from some of these American conservatives," Mr. Reynolds said,  "because of some of the proven mistakes they have made. You  get these high-profile cases, like Hurricane Carter, where people see real wrongdoing because of how these judges have operated."
In spite of newly documented errors, it is important to remember that U.S. support for capital punishment, though depressed, is still very high, at 66%. Not insignificantly, both Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney, his running-mate, have unassailable pro-death penalty credentials.   And many prominent U.S. conservative thinkers, such as the eminent political scientist James Q. Wilson, and Steve    Sailer, the conservative essayist, remain undeterred by high-profile stories about botched justice on death row.

Nevertheless, Julian Roberts, a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa, thinks public support for the
 death penalty  -- among conservatives and liberals alike -- will continue to sag. "The Pope forgave the man who shot him, and he was responsible for springing him. I think those sorts of initiatives and gestures have the
 effect of softening -- I wouldn't go so far as undermining, but softening -- some of the support for capital
  punishment ... I don't have hard statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case," he said. Mr. Roberts also pointed to the 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker as a turning point in conservative opinion. "Most people, rightly or wrongly, simply didn't like the idea of an attractive, God-fearing young woman being fried."

Arch Puddington, a U.S. essayist and the vice-president for research at Freedom House in New York, discounts these religious and spiritual explanations for the changing levels of conservative support for the death penalty. "I haven't seen social conservatives cite the Pope," Mr. Puddington said. "The real factor is that crime is down, and murder is way down."

Whatever the reason, Tracy Lamourie, the co-director of the Canadian Coalition against the Death Penalty, is buoyed by the newfound re-assessment of the death penalty taking place among conservatives south of the border. She only wishes the same change were occurring here.

"I don't see the same kind of introspection in Canada that we see among conservatives in America,"
Ms. Lamourie said.  Still, one thing about conservatives and the death penalty has always confounded
Ms. Lamourie. "Conservatives usually question big government," she said, "so it seems odd that they would support the death penalty, which is a huge big government scheme." That logic seems to be gaining force. "Imagine an institution with the precision and efficiency of the Post Office, except that its job is to kill people," Peter Huber, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank, recently said.  In a recent clarification of his position, Mr. Huber said he was being unfair to the Post Office when he said that.

                             Using Internet Links From Behind Bars
                                                                        By DIRK JOHNSON

Chicago (AP) -- The Internet has given a platform to death-row inmates and other
American prisoners to plead their cases and seek pen pals, sparking outrage among
many families of victims and creating a new debate about the rights of the growing
number of prisoners.

While no American prison allows inmates access to the Internet, prisoners use
third-party services, usually for a fee, to reach out to a potentially huge audience.

In Texas, dozens of inmates like Michael Blue, who is on death row, appear on Web
sites saying they were wrongly convicted of murder. On one Web site, Mr. Blue is
described as "a little shy, honest, caring, loving."

A California inmate, Askia Ashanti, appears on a Web site looking for "a pro bono
attorney or $5,000 to $10,000 in funds to hire an attorney."

And Beau Greene, who is imprisoned in Arizona, appears on a Web site in a picture,
cradling a fluffy cat and asking for pen pals. Mr. Greene is described as "bored and
lonely with a surplus of time."

Mr. Greene, 32, does not mention that he was convicted in 1996 of killing a slender,
58-year-old musician, Roy Johnson, by bashing the man's head against rocks.

When the victim's daughter, Jennifer Johnson Lopez, discovered the Web site, she said
she was horrified that the killer, "trying to look all warm and cuddly," was able to use the
Internet to escape his feeling of confinement.

"I was disgusted," Ms. Johnson Lopez said. "He said he missed companionship. I
thought, 'Serves you right.' "

Victims' rights groups complain that it is humiliating for victims and their families to see
prisoners popping up on Web sites. And the groups also complain that some people
browsing the Internet might begin correspondence with violent criminals or fall for their
stories without knowing the real details of their crimes.

In the face of such criticism, officials in New York and Arizona have enacted policies or
laws that forbid prisoners to use third-party Internet service providers. Washington and
other states have debated similar measures.

But in the view of many civil libertarians, these measures infringe on the First
Amendment rights of inmates. Eleanor Eisenberg, the executive director of the Arizona
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said her group was considering filing a
lawsuit against the Arizona measure.

"It clearly impinges on an inmate's First Amendment right to communicate," Ms.
Eisenberg said. "It also chills the rights of third parties who have committed no crimes."

Prison officials, however, say they are frustrated by the Web sites, and they say the
Internet has allowed prisoners to have soapboxes to prey on the innocent and
softhearted.

"The Internet has given these criminals worldwide access and the ability to raise huge
amounts of money," said Gary Phelps, the chief of staff for the Arizona Department of
Corrections. "Besides that, we've got women coming from Australia, Belgium, England
-- all wanting to see these men they've met on the Internet."

The Internet has also become a tool in championing the causes of individual inmates,
such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, who defenders contend was wrongly convicted of killing a
police officer in Philadelphia in 1981.

At least a dozen Web sites carry details about the case and history of Mr. Abu-Jamal.
One of the largest sites, operated by a private anti-death-penalty group in New York
called Refuse and Resist, describes the inmate as "a prominent radio journalist" being
punished because he "allowed the angry and anguished voices of the oppressed onto
the airwaves."

It features a photograph of Mr. Abu-Jamal, smiling and raising a clenched fist.

A page on the Web site, under a headline reading "The Frame-Up," calls the police
account absurd and says that witnesses in Mr. Abu-Jamal's defense were harassed by
law enforcement authorities. The site invites people to join marches around the country
on Mr. Abu-Jamal's behalf. It also encourages Web site visitors to print and distribute
the posting to other potential supporters.

Mr. Abu-Jamal's lawyer, Leonard Weinglass, said the Internet had allowed people
around the world to closely follow Mr. Abu-Jamal's case. "If something happens in court,
it's important that our friends in France, Germany and Denmark be informed," Mr.
Weinglass said.

Brian Henninger, a spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty,
said that group had used its Web site to "build a campaign of support for inmates," like
its recent series on young prisoners, "Stop Killing Kids."

"Cyberorganizing is still an art form that's being reinvented," Mr. Henninger said. "It's
one way that very small organizations can have a very large impact."

The anti-death-penalty group has posted online petitions, as well as sample letters to
Congress and state governors asking for appeals and clemency for inmates.

The Canadian Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty allows any American inmate to
post background information at no cost. And some defense lawyers have used the
Internet to plead the cases of their clients.

In most cases, the prisoners are simply looking for people to write to them, a way of
whiling away the hours in their cells.

American prison authorities have long read inmates' mail, except for legal
correspondence and letters to elected officials. But in recent years, prisons have made
it more difficult for inmates to have contact with people on the outside, said Steve Bright,
the director of the Southern Center For Human Rights, an advocacy group for inmates'
rights.

"It used to be viewed as a positive to stay in touch with the outside world, since the idea
was that people would be rehabilitated and then returned to society," Mr. Bright said.
"Now the attitude is to make the prisons as punitive as possible and make the prisoners
as miserable as possible."

In general, he said, the courts have almost always sided with prison authorities in
clamping down on the ability of inmates to communicate with outsiders, especially
reporters.

In New York, while inmates are forbidden to receive mail from third-party services, they
can send mail to these services, as long as they disclose that they are prison inmates.

"We believe in truth in inmate advertising," said James Flateau, a spokesman for the
New York Department of Correctional Services. "We want people to know who they're
writing to."

Like many other state prison systems, the New York correctional department posts an
"inmate look-up" on the Internet so the potential pen pals can learn about a prisoner's
record, Mr. Flateau said, "and decide for themselves if that's someone they want to write
to."

The growing American prison population, together with the surging interest in the death
penalty, has given rise to a handful of third-party Internet access providers who typically
charge a fee to inmates for posting their information.

While prisoners have always sent letters seeking supporters, the Internet has vastly
increased the potential to reach large audiences far from their cells.

Rarely do these Internet access providers vouch for the accuracy of the inmates' claims.
In addition, some Web sites are maintained by families of inmates.

One of the largest third-party Internet services for inmates is run by the Rev. Rene
Mulkey, who operates in rural Missouri and has a client list of about 1,500 prisoners.

For $10, a fee that Ms. Mulkey says is used to defray mailing costs, inmates can have a
biographical sketch posted on her Web site, usually with a photograph, a first name and
an identification number. When people send messages to individual prisoners, she
forwards them through the United States Postal Service.

"A lot of the guys are asking for romance, or friends, or just plain encouragement," Ms.
Mulkey said.

Except for very few cases, inmates have not been able to raise sizable amounts of
money through the Internet, despite their frequent requests for contributions, or to secure
pro bono lawyers to defend them.

"If they're looking for money for a legal defense fund," Ms. Mulkey said, "I tell them that's
probably not going to happen."

She said her empathy for inmates stemmed, in part, from what she described as a
"false arrest record" that had haunted her late husband. "Things are not always what
they seem to be," she said. "The press makes these guys out to be animals, but they're
not."

But Jane McGrath, a Republican state legislator who sponsored the bill prohibiting
inmates from using third-party Internet services, said it galled the families of victims to
see the smiling faces of criminals who describe themselves as decent people.

"Have you ever run into a criminal who says, 'Yeah, I did it'?" Ms. McGrath asked. "Well,
the Internet allows these people to distort history. It's a way of further victimizing the
victim."

Copyright © New York Times Company.

Correction: August 3, 2000, Thursday

An article on Tuesday about prisoners' access to the Internet misstated the
surname of a woman who discovered that her father's killer uses a Web site
to seek pen pals. She is Jennifer Johnson Martinez, not Lopez. The article
also misstated the given name of an Arizona legislator who sponsored a bill
prohibiting inmates from using third-party Internet services. She is Jean
McGrath, not Jane.

One of the Internet's many uses is to bring people together as pen pals. A Nebraskan whose name
became known in the 1990s is one of those who has placed a pen pal request online. In appealing for
people to write to him, he describes his interest in NFL football, auto racing, reading and country music.
"I was adopted when I was 6 days old and was raised on a ranch in Nebraska," he writes." I look forward
to hearing from a pen-pal. Please take really good care of yourself and be safe."

The writer who posted that message is Roger Bjorklund, now on death row at the Nebraska state pen for
the 1992 kidnap, rape and murder of Candice Harms, a freshman at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln.
The trial of Bjorklund and co-defendant Scott Barney for Harms' torture-murder was one of the more
closely followed of the past decade.

Bjorklund's pen pal solicitation, found at the Web site for the Canadian Coalition Against the Death
Penalty, is among many such requests posted on prisoner-friendly Web sites by inmates from across
the country. The practice has drawn the curiosity of journalists and state policy-makers - and generated
outrage among victims-rights advocates.

Online snapshots of smiling murderers and rapists are adding to the pain of victims and their families,
critics contend. The solicitations also raise the possibility that inmates will manipulate or defraud people
who respond.

Bjorklund has already demonstrated the lengths to which he will try to manipulate people. During his trial
in 1993, Bjorklund duped his minister into mailing letters, written by Bjorklund, to jurors in an apparent
attempt to create a mistrial.

During the trial, a sworn statement from Bjorklund's psychiatrist was quoted in court as stating that
Bjorklund was "not as interested in having sex with (Harms) as in playing psychological mind games
with her." 'See Where It Leads'

An online search by The World-Herald turned up only three postings from individuals serving time for
crimes committed in Nebraska. Bjorklund is the only one of the state's 10 death row prisoners listed for
pen pal solicitation at the Canadian site.

The World-Herald found online messages from eight prisoners in Iowa (which, unlike Nebraska, has no
death penalty).

The pen pal request from one Iowa prisoner stated, "I hope we can add more joy, strength and
imagination into each other's lives. ... I'm very sensitive to women's feelings and needs." The posting was
from Jim Dorsey, an inmate at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. He is serving a life sentence
for first-degree murder.

Another Iowa inmate posted these thoughts: "Nothing to do but time on my hands, so what better way to
spend my days and nights than writing to all you ladies who decide to respond. Let's get to know one
another and see where it leads us." The writer is William E. Auer, serving 25 years for attempted murder
and 10 years for assault to commit sexual abuse with serious injury.

Despite the pain that such inmate postings cause for victims' families, prison systems face considerable
legal obstacles in trying to restrict them. Courts have upheld prisoners' right to communicate with people
on the outside in a variety of situations, said Susan Herman, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School
who specializes in First Amendment issues involving prisoners. The exceptions that courts have granted
for limiting prisoners' speech rights have centered on prison security concerns. Rearguing Cases

Courts have also upheld prisoners' rights to reargue their cases in their writings to the outside, according
to Herman. In that regard, a World-Herald search turned up a lengthy online message from Charles
Watkins, an inmate at the Iowa State Penitentiary, who argues his innocence in regard to his first-degree
kidnapping conviction.

Along the same line, a different prisoner Web site includes a posting that proclaims the innocence of
Jose Deltoro, a Mexican citizen living in California who was convicted in 1996 of supplying 75 to 85
pounds of methamphetamine to the Omaha area.

Nebraska prisoners are not able to post their online messages directly, said Harold Clarke, director of
the State Department of Correctional Services, because the state deliberately provides no modems for
computers used in educational classes for inmates. Material is relayed by friends or relatives to
third-party Internet services that specialize in posting inmate messages.

Lancaster County Attorney Gary Lacey, who oversaw the prosecution of Bjorklund in the Candice Harms
case, expressed concern that the death row inmate has placed a pen pal request on the Internet. Before
his incarceration, Bjorklund was a computer devotee active on computer bulletin boards, Lacey noted.

After his arrest, Bjorklund asked the trial judge for computer access in order to do legal research. The
request was denied.

It hardly makes sense, Lacey said, to open up prisoner access to the Internet at the very time
authorities are dealing with a rising tide of computer-facilitated crime. Potential for Abuse

Clarke, the director of Nebraska's prison system, said Internet messaging from the state's inmates has
been so minimal that it hasn't become a matter for major discussion in the Legislature yet. Prisoners do
have considerable speech rights, Clarke said, but at the same time, prison administrators from across
the country are aware of the potential abuses and have begun discussing the issue with each other.

Two states, New York and Arizona, have attempted to thread the legal needle by approving laws that
prohibit prisoners from using third-party Internet services to post messages. That step doesn't stop
inmates from posting messages online, but it does enable prison authorities to better deal with the
issue. The New York correctional system is also putting information about prisoners online to inform
potential pen pals.

Such measures are worthy of debate by state policy-makers in the Midlands.

(Copyright 2000 Omaha World-Herald Company)

  THE EXPERTS EXPOUND:

  Julian Roberts
  Professor of Criminology, University of Ottawa

  "I don't think there's any way of escaping it – the majority of people think capital  punishment should be a legal penalty. Ask people if they are in favour or against  capital punishment, and you get about seventy percent support for capital punishment.

  "But there was a study done in the U.S. where they said, 'Here's an actual case:  this guy's twenty years old, he's black, he's got four previous convictions, and he killed a person in the course of a robbery.' If the respondents were given this  information and asked if they thought he should be executed, then the percentage
  supporting capital punishment dropped to about thirty percent. People have  different reactions when they actually hear the facts."

  John Reynolds
  Justice Critic, Canadian Alliance Party (West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast)

  "A lot of people asked me about capital punishment during the election, and I  made a commitment to try and get the house to vote on the issue. My  constituents have concerns. They've seen the real bad crimes that have taken  place, with guys like [Paul] Bernardo and Clifford Olson. There's a lot of anger in the West about these things. Many people feel that with criminals like Bernardo,  we should put them out of their . . . [pauses] or put them in a cell for the rest of  their lives."

  Tracy Lamourie
  Director, Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty

  "A lot of people have the impression that there's maybe a hundred people on death  row and they're all the well-known serial killers, and that when you see cnn coverage of an execution, then that's the only execution for that year. I don't think  people realize executions are taking place at a rate of two or three a week.

  "We have been very encouraged by e-mails from places like Texas. One person  told us, 'I'm a proud Texan, I never thought I'd change my opinion on capital  punishment, but seeing the writing and artwork by prisoners on your Web site, it  showed me that these people really are human beings and not just criminals.'

  "If you follow up a question about reinstating capital punishment with the question,  'What if life in prison really meant life,' then a lot of people retract their strong belief  in the death penalty. We've been on radio and television shows with members of  the Reform party calling for the death penalty, and it seems to me what they're  expressing is a frustration with the justice system. If there are problems with the  justice system, I say fix them. But don't give the system the power to kill people."

                 Travel rights may shield Bellevue murder suspects: Canadians'
                 extradition ruling in death-penalty case likely months away
        by Noel S. Brady -Journal Reporter

                 The right of Canadian citizens to move freely in
                 and out of their country has become a key issue
                 in the debate over sending two British Columbia
                 men back to King County to face murder
                 charges.

                 Attorneys for Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns
                 clung to that basic constitutional right in
                 Ottawa yesterday during a five-hour extradition
                 hearing before the nine justices of the Canadian
                 Supreme Court.

                 Their ruling isn't expected for several months.

                 The case is being watched by Canadian legal
                 and constitutional experts, as well as by
                 anti-death penalty activists around the world.

                 Also watching is King County Prosecutor Norm
                 Maleng, who wants to try the men for the 1994
                 murders of Rafay's mother, father and sister in
                 their Bellevue home. Maleng still hasn't said
                 whether he intends to go for the death penalty
                 in the case.

                 Washington's aggravated murder charge carries
                 two possible sentences -- death or life
                 imprisonment without parole -- and the potential
                 of execution is the reason for the prolonged
                 legal battle.

                 Canada abolished capital punishment in 1976
                 and never has extradited one of its own citizens
                 to the U.S. to face the death penalty.

                 For now, Burns and Rafay, both 24, remain
                 behind bars in Vancouver, British Columbia,
                 awaiting the Supreme Court's decision.

                 Attorneys for Burns and Rafay yesterday
                 argued that if the pair were condemned to death,
                 their right to return to Canada would be taken
                 away.

                 That would violate the Charter of Rights and
                 Freedoms in the Canadian Constitution, which
                 says Canadians have the right to move freely in
                 and out of Canada.

                 ``This status of citizenship is crucial, we carry it
                 wherever we go, it is absolutely, intimately,
                 irrevocably bound up with the person,'' Marlys
                 Edwardh, Rafay's lawyer, told the court.

                 ``The surrender of these two young citizens
                 without assurances is a violation of their right
                 to enter because imposition of this penalty will
                 irrevocably prevent them from exercising this
                 right.''

                 One justice asked if life sentences without
                 parole, their only sentencing alternative,
                 wouldn't also restrict that right.

                 The attorneys responded that death is different.
                 With consecutive life sentences, a glimmer of
                 hope that the men might someday be freed will
                 always exist.

                 Canada's Justice Department argued that it
                 believes the men will get a fair trial in the United
                States and that they fail to qualify for extradition
                 under special circumstances, such as an
                 assurance against execution.

                 Canada's treaty allows -- but does not require --
                 the justice minister to seek assurances that
                 extradited Canadians will not face capital
                 punishment.

                 They argued that former Canadian Minister of
                 Justice Allan Rock followed the Canadian
                 Constitution in 1996 when he decided to send
                 the two men back to Seattle for trial and
                 possible death sentences.

                 The B.C. Court of Appeals overturned that
                 decision in 1997.

                 Government attorneys also argued that Canada
                 might turn into a haven for criminals if it became
                 known as a place to hide from the death penalty.

                 The U.S. Justice Department stayed out of the
                 debate.

                 Representatives from Amnesty International
                 and the Washington Association of Defense
                 Lawyers voiced support for extraditing Burns
                 and Rafay only with the assurance of no death
                 penalty. The Italian senate and the Canadian
                 Coalition Against the Death Penalty sent letters
                 of support.

                 ``Every other major country has abolished the
                 death penalty with the exception of the United
                 States, and all of those countries seek
                 assurances (not to execute) in capital murder
                 extraditions,'' said Mark Warren of Amnesty
                 International.

                 Burns and Rafay have been in custody since
                 July 1995. They were arrested by the Royal
                 Canadian Mounted Police about a year after
                 fleeing to Canada. Mounties say the two men
                 confessed to undercover officers before their
                 arrests.

                 King County prosecutors say the two Cornell
                 University students were visiting Rafay's
                 parents in July 1994.

                 Rafay watched, they say, as Burns used a
                 baseball bat to bludgeon Rafay's parents, Tariq
                 and Sultan Rafay, and his 19-year-old autistic
                 sister, Basma, in the family's new Somerset
                 neighborhood home.

                 Yesterday's hearing was the second time the
                 case had come before the Supreme Court. A
                 hearing last year was negated when two justices
                 retired before a decision.

                 The Associated Press contributed to this story.

OFFBEAT:   Window On Death Row

With everybody and his crazy uncle getting on the Net, it was only a matter of time before death-row inmates got their own Web pages. The Toronto-based Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CCADP) hosts pages for 220 mainly U.S. convicts facing execution, at www.ccadp.org. (Canada has abolished the death penalty.)

Richard Allen Davis, the notorious San Quentin inmate convicted in the Polly Klaas kidnap-murder case, is there, with a request for pen pals (“The most often thought that I do have, is wondering if for someone such as myself, can one ever fall back in love with life again. For myself, I feel that I do not have that right, or even the time spent considering such a thought”).

But so is Jimmy Dennis, an aspiring Philadelphia musician whose case is the subject of an international human-rights campaign. The CCADP alleges that Dennis was set up by police hungry for a conviction in the high-profile killing of a teenage girl for her dime-store earrings. As the site recounts, a witness against Dennis, who later recanted, was handcuffed to a chair during an hourslong interrogation by five police detectives. Dennis’ public defender failed to have a button ripped from the victim’s dress analyzed for fingerprints or DNA.

A lot of this stuff you’ve heard or seen before, on other Web sites or perhaps in those Benetton ads. But a real eye opener is the CCADP space devoted to “Texecutioner” George W. Bush, “America’s biggest serial killer.” Did you know that the GOP presidential candidate has presided over 124 executions? Or that among those snuffed were a battered woman and several severely mentally ill and/or mentally deficient men?

The Bush-authorized execution of Odell Barnes made headlines in France, where President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin had interceded on the inmate’s behalf. New DNA and other evidence suggested that police framed Barnes, CCADP’s site reports. Such allegations were once routinely ignored; Bush’s executions aren’t even on the radar of most political reporters this election season. But in these days of the Rampart evidence-planting and police-perjury scandal, can we afford to ignore them any longer?

According to the paper, the Web pages run the gamut from sites displaying benign art from inmates, their arguments against the criminal justice system and the death penalty and requests for pen pals to sites containing violent art or poetry.

   Photograph by Janet Orsi

Tangled Web - Child killer Richard Allen Davis gets a home page of his own
By Paula Harris

CLICK ON THE WEB PAGE. The scanned  photographs of Native American-inspired art and woodwork show nothing remarkable. Clichéd wolves, eagles, buffalo, and Indian tribal riders etched onto plastic cups and Bic lighter holders. Typical Southwestern art show offerings.

What's not so typical is the artist.

"Greetings with a smile," states the cheery blurb on the artist's Web page. "I was just wondering that after
going through my trial and all the media statements about myself: Could there be someone out there in the
 world who would be with an open mind to not take everything that has been said about me? Could there be
 anyone who could take the time to see for themselves,  just who I really am."

Welcome to the home page of Richard Allen Davis, now on San Quentin State Prison's death row, convicted of the abduction and murder of Petaluma schoolgirl Polly Klaas.

The murder occurred in 1993, but memories of the case are still vivid. Davis, a state parolee with a long
criminal history, invaded Klaas' quiet neighborhood home during a slumber party. While Klaas' mother and
sister slept nearby, Davis bound and gagged her two school friends and abducted the sobbing 12-year-old at
knifepoint.

Two months later, Davis confessed to strangling Klaas and led police to her body buried beneath a scrap heap
in Cloverdale. In 1996, he was convicted and sentenced to die. So how is he now able to reach out to the world via the Internet, display his art, and even request pen pals on his own home page? Could the site be a hoax?

"Richard Allen Davis' page is indeed genuine and is still active," say Tracy Lamourie and Dave Parkinson,
directors of the Toronto-based nonprofit Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, which provides
 and maintains free Web pages for death-row inmates.     "The page was created in April of 1999 when we received a letter from Richard Davis, as we do from many death-row prisoners, in response to this outreach form that is passed from prisoner to prisoner," they add.

Critics charge that featuring Richard Allen Davis, the high-profile convicted killer of "America's Child," is an
odd choice for a poster boy for such an organization,  which claims to champion human rights. Not so,
 respond the CCAPD co-founders.

"We offer free Web pages to all death-row prisoners,  regardless of whether the perpetrator is high-profile or
not, guilty or innocent. We ask one question: Is the  person under sentence of death?

"We believe that the government should not be given the power to kill its citizens in the guise of justice.
Period," note Lamourie and Parkinson in a joint statement.

"We don't feel any one murder is better or worse than any other, or that the life of any victim is more or less
valuable than the life of another murder victim," they add. "Therefore we don't make any judgments as to
which crimes would disqualify the offender from appearing on our pages. If they are sentenced to die,
then they are welcome to use our pages to attempt to garner support to attempt to save their lives."

However, Lamourie and Parkinson admit they've received " a lot of negative response" from individuals
outraged by Davis' page.

One of those outraged Web surfers is Marc Klaas, a full-time campaigner in the cause of preventing
violence against children since the kidnapping and murder of his daughter.

"We did receive an e-mail from Mark [sic] Klaas, who was not pleased with Davis having a page. . . . I
 believe he had been alerted to the existence of the page in December when he was contacted by a local
California TV station," says Parkinson.

He did not elaborate on the communication.

The Davis websites, located at   http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/ccadp/davisart.htm
and http://members.home.net/ccadp/richarddavis.htm,  are still up and running, complete with recent
photographs and a request by Davis to "place me on other countries (sic) death row penpal web hook ups."

As for Davis' artwork, it's for display purposes only, according to the CCAPD. "As far as I know, [the work] was never for sale," says Parkinson. "At least  not on our site . . ."

Among the items on the cons' laundry list of complaints: Not enough sunshine, not enough rec
time, no physical contact visits and a daily menu that simply isn't up to snuff.

Tough breaks all, you'll agree. My one-step solution designed to solve everything?

Execute the plaintiffs.

Sure, this won't do much to help Death Row meet the meticulous standards of, say, The Phoenician, but
it will free up the legal system - and it will also help solve a new problem facing the Department of Corrections:

Death Row cons trolling the Internet via personal ads.

You'd think that this dilemma would be easy to eliminate: The 118 inmates in question already have
no access to cyberspace whatsoever. No matter - that's where the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty has stepped in.

The coalition provides free Web pages for those awaiting execution, along with pen-pal requests
from Death Row inmates nationwide. Currently, 13 convicted Arizona killers have ads on the site,
including some with beefcake photos and links to their very own Web pages.

DOC spokeswoman Camilla Strongin says the department sees this as a scam waiting to happen.

"Unfortunately, the people that respond to these, less than forthcoming ads, don't generally understand anything about the crime this individual committed. Before they know it, they're 'helping out' in ways they shouldn't and that ultimately could be illegal."

Unsurprisingly, the Arizona Legislature has decided such communications need to stop, given cons' propensity for conning the unsuspecting and the naive. To that end, State Rep. Jean McGrath has
authored House Bill 2376, which states 'an inmate shall not send mail or receive mail from a communication service provider or remote computing service.'

Predictably, as with most everything the Legislature touches, this bill will do almost nothing to stop the problem it intends to address. The trouble is, a court consent decree known as "Hook" prevents the Corrections Department from opening all but 10 percent of inmate mail. On top of that, no outgoing mail is subject to search. Thus, there's no realistic way to intercept incoming or outgoing personal ad responses.  Which means the likes of Michael Correll will be free to solicit Web pals and cash.

Correll, according to the online crime site APBNews.com, has gotten more mileage from the Web than any other Arizona inmate: Love letters, donations, girlfriends, the whole nine yards. He even has his own Web page where he pleads his innocence.

What do women see in a triple killer judged responsible for one strangling and two gun deaths?
I guess it's just that he's such a sensitive soul. "Please write if you have a sincere and caring
heart and wish to bring the light of day into my life," his personal ad reads. "I like drawing, most
kinds of music, Harley Davidsons, reading books. I love all animals and nature."

To which I might add: "I also like binding women to chairs and strangling them with a heavy shoelace.
I've also been known to favor driving people into the desert and putting a bullet or two into his or her head."

There's nothing like truth in advertising, I always say.

Which is why I'd love to amend the personal ad of convicted killer Thomas Paul West. His version: 
"I'm a happy go unlucky, lonely dude, love music, mostly hard rock, sunshine and outdoors, kids, & puppy dogs & hip people that understand that opportunity does NOT come knocking at your door BUT shows up in your Mailbox!"

My version: "I also understand that if opportunity doesn't knock, you can do what I did to 53-year-old
Donald Lee Bortle: Break down the door, tie him up with a vaccuum cleaner cord and a lamp wire, then beat him to death. How's that for opportunity?"

As for William Herrera Jr., implicated in the murder of Sheriff's Deputy Vernon Marconnet, he may
actually be the first man in need of being executed twice: Once for his crime, and a second time for
writing such lousy poetry. His ad: "I know how it feels to be so alone, to feel such loneliness that chills to the bone. I know how it feels to be without love, to be crying to heaven to send an angel from above, I know how it feels to be in pain, to have a lonely shattered heart and soul make tears flow like an endless rain, I know how it feels to be so alone, to be without family nor have a place to call home. I very much know how to be so alone."

Frankly, such horrible suffering deserves immediate relief. Herrera and his cohorts need some new
friends. I'm not thinking e-mail pals, though. I'm thinking all the state's witnesses we can fit in the execution chamber in Florence.

David Leibowitz  olumns appear on Arizona Central every Wednesday and in the Arts & Ideas section of
The Arizona Republic each Sunday. Leibowitz can be heard on KTAR 620 AM weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon

A virtual reality known as death row   By J.L. MILLER   Dover Bureau reporter    01/30/2000

    Three of Delaware's 18 inmates awaiting execution are using the global reach of the Internet to proclaim their innocence and drum up support for their appeals.
    Jack F. Outten Jr., Hector S. Barrow and Abdullah T. Hameen are among more than 170 condemned inmates nationwide who have been given Internet pages by the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty.
    The coalition offers free Web space to any inmate sentenced to death, a move that has angered friends and family of murder victims.
    But the coalition said the death penalty - which Canada has abolished - is a human rights issue that deserves worldwide exposure.
     'We're allowing people through the Internet to essentially tour death row,' said Toronto resident Dave Parkinson, who maintains the Web site with wife Tracy Lamourie. 'A lot of people have been seriously shocked by what they've seen.'
    Visitors to the coalition's home page - www.ccadp.org - can point and click their way to condemned inmates from Delaware to California.
    Lamourie and Parkinson said they offer this service to inmates not only because they oppose capital punishment, but also to help put a human face on the almost 4,000 men and women sentenced to death in the United States.
    'It is our intention to bring the real faces and cases on death row to the public's attention,' their Web site states. 'It is too easy for people to say they are pro-death penalty and never really know the reality of what this means.'
    They also say they are doing it out of basic human compassion.
     'We obviously want to do away with capital punishment once and for all, but we want to assist these inmates in the meantime who are sitting on death row, waiting,' Parkinson said.
    Web surfers can listen to inmates' poetry and songs, find a prison pen pal or view the gory aftermath of the July execution of Allen Lee 'Tiny' Davis in Florida's electric chair.
    They can pay a virtual visit to Brittany Holberg, whose girl-next-door good looks belie the robbery-murder that landed her on Texas' death row.
    They can send an e-mail to Lancelot Armstrong, a Jamaican national who is on death row in Florida for a murder he says he did not commit.
    And they can sneak a peek behind the barbed wire and prison bars of the Delaware Correctional Center to read about Outten, Barrow and Hameen.

                                 Angry responses

    That angers Anthony Nunnciato, whose brother, Wilmington gun shop owner Thomas Smith, was shot to death by Barrow in a 1996 robbery.
     'It's amazing that these people want to give these free Web pages to convicted murderers,' said Nunnciato, who lives in Laurel Lake, N.J. 'I wonder if they'd feel the same way if it was their wife or their mother who had their brains blown out,' he said.
    Parkinson and Lamourie have heard complaints like Nunnciato's before, but maintain they are only trying to end the death penalty.
    'We have gotten some extremely nasty and virulent e-mails from Americans who were under the impression we're somehow glorifying or promoting these people,' Parkinson said.
     'We have no Web pages for people doing life,' Lamourie said. 'We have no pages for Canadian killers. If these people were not under sentence of death, they would not be on there.'
    Visitors to Barrow's home page are greeted by a color photograph of a smiling Barrow and a dateline of 'Death Row, Delaware, U.S.A.'
    'It has been a total of just over four long years that I have been incarcerated for a crime I didn't commit,' Barrow writes.
    Barrow states he needs money to hire an attorney, a private investigator and consultants to bolster his appeals.
    'Any contribution would be very much appreciated to obtain the justice I have been denied,' he writes.
    That doesn't set well with Nunnciato, the brother of Barrow's victim.
    'I think he got more than a fair trial,' Nunnciato said. 'Probably if you polled every death row inmate, they'd say, 'Yeah, I didn't do it.'

                               Help from the outside

     Because Delaware's 18 condemned inmates do not have Internet access, they must rely on friends, relatives or the Canadian coalition to put their stories on the Web.
    Delaware inmate Outten's Web page was prepared by his wife, whose name does not appear on the site.
     Contacted by The News Journal, she would not comment nor provide her name, saying her employer might not welcome the publicity.
     She confirmed, however, that she prepared the material on Outten's Web site, with his approval.
     Outten's site contains a recitation of his case, allegations that he was convicted on the basis of perjured testimony and an emotional outpouring from the woman who loves him.
    'I've looked at every angle of this phenomenon called the death penalty and I'm sick of it and sick because of it,' Outten's wife writes. 'I'd rather shut down, but I have to pick my head up and keep looking for any signs of hope.'
     John P. Deckers, one of two lawyers handling Outten's appeal, said the coalition's Web pages are unlikely to affect the judicial process in death penalty cases.
     'In most of these cases, the issues are going to be resolved in a courtroom and not on the Internet,' Deckers said.
     However, Deckers noted that in some cases in other states, publicity has sparked investigations that have led to the exoneration of some condemned inmates.
    'When t