Justice Department Trying to Impose Death Penalty on Puerto Rico
Saturday, April 9, 2005 at 05:40PM
TheSpook
Puerto Rico
Governor Asks Attorney General Alberto Gonzáles to respect the Puerto
Rican Constitution and not to seek the death penalty in the case [more]
The subject of the death penalty has
heated up in Puerto Rico, where capital punishment is prohibited by the
Constitution of 1952. In theory, because it`s never been tested,
residents of Puerto Rico who commit a federal crime that carries the
death penalty could be sentenced to die. Such is the case with two
Puerto Ricans who have been tried and convicted of killing a security
guard and who, on April 11, will go before the same jury that found
them guilty to determine whether they will be sentenced to the death
penalty. On March 22 a federal jury found Hernando Medina Villegas and
Lorenzo Catalán Román guilty of killing the security guard in 2002. The
U.S. Attorney`s Office has said it has jurisdiction because the case
involves interstate commerce. If the two men are condemned to die, the
federal criminal justice system would have to take the extraordinary
step of bringing them to the mainland to execute them. Despite the high
crime rate in Puerto Rico, opinion polls have consistently found that
the people are opposed to the reinstatement of the death penalty. On
Tuesday, the governor, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, formally asked the U.S. to
refrain from imposing the death penalty in Puerto Rico. People from the
civic sector, religious organizations ranging from the Roman Catholic
Church to conservative groups, people who support independence and
people who support statehood, and those in the labor movement have all
come out against the death penalty on the island. [more]
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Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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