Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for two men charged with murdering a drug case witness in what would be the first execution by the U.S. government in 27 years.
"We recognize the death penalty is an extreme sanction," Andrea L. Zopp, one of the federal prosecutors handling the case, said Thursday. "We think it is appropriate in this case."It would be the first use of a November 1988 federal law that allows the death penalty for murders committed to further drug conspiracies. The so-called "drug kingpin" provisions sanction the death penalty for murders ordered by drug dealers as part of their business.
Alexander Cooper and Anthony Davis are charged with murdering a federal witness to protect their $50,000-a-day drug ring. Davis is still at large.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh said, "Street level distribution networks such as the one alleged in this indictment cannot be effectively dismantled without the cooperation of citizen-witnesses.
"When those witnesses are murdered because of their cooperation with law enforcement authorities, Congress has determined that this ultimate sanction should be available."
Federal authorities are "eager to show that they're tough on drug crime," but the law won't stop drug dealers from killing, said Henry Schwarzschild, director of the Capital Punishment Project for the American Civil Liberties Union.
"They expect to get away with it. They don't expect to get caught. And if you expect to get away with it, you don't care if the penalty is 40 years in prison or the electric chair," he said in a telephone interview from New York.
"We're certainly not pleased with the federal government getting back into the business of death penalty cases," Schwarzschild said.