Beverley Lumpkin: Halls of Justice

ByABC News
October 20, 2000, 10:15 AM

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 20 --

FIRST FEDERAL EXECUTION SCHEDULED

You may recall that President Clinton postponed the previously scheduled first federal execution, of Juan Raul Garza, until Dec. 12.

In the meantime, however, another inmate of federal death row decided to drop all his appeals and volunteer. So David Paul Hammer has now leapfrogged over Garza to the front of the line, and is set to be put to death by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., on Nov. 15.

Hammer, 41, originally was transferred into the federal prison system in 1993 by Oklahoma, where he had been serving a sentence of more than 1,200 years for numerous crimes.

But in April 1996, while locked up in Allenwood, Pa., (one of the original Club Feds), Hammer strangled his roommate. He pleaded guilty to the crime in 1998 and was sentenced to death under federal law.

Obviously the first federal execution since 1963 comes at a time when capital punishment generally has been under increasing scrutiny.

Last month the Justice Department finally released figures showing that despite all its careful processes and procedures, there are huge racial and geographic disparities between those who receive the federal death penalty and those who dont. Garzas attorneys are citing the study in their arguments for executive clemency.

And all around the country the move for a moratorium seems to be picking up steam.

Clearly the vast majority of citizens still support capital punishment, but more than 30 cities have passed resolutions calling for a moratorium. Studies of the death penaltys fairness have begun in several states.

A surprising action that garnered much attention was Illinois Gov. George Ryans February declaration of a moratorium, after 13 men were released from his states death row due to wrongful convictions. The head of the American Bar Association has called for a moratorium by all states that have the death penalty.