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A federal judge on Friday threatened a prosecutor with contempt over the Justice Department's decision to seek the death penalty against the truck driver in a deadly immigrant smuggling case, a decision the driver's lawyer contends was racially motivated. The allegation is in a document filed by attorneys for Tyrone Williams, 33, of Schenectady, N.Y., accused in the deaths last year of 19 undocumented immigrants who were sealed in a trailer pulled by Williams en route to Houston. The document asked U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore to find the U.S. Attorney's office in Houston in contempt for failing to produce information showing why the Justice Department decided to seek the death penalty for Williams and not 11 others indicted in the incident who were eligible for the death penalty. Williams' attorneys say prosecutors have repeatedly failed to heed her order and ask that the judge bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty. Williams' attorney, Craig Washington, wrote in his contempt request, "To this date, the purported responses to the discovery order have been meaningless and not at all directed to the request for production or the court's order for production." On Friday, Gilmore threatened to hold one of the prosecutors in contempt if he failed to get a letter from U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft by the end of the day stating his refusal to explain why the only death penalty ever sought in an immigrant smuggling case is against a black man. [more] and [more]

Texas still No. 1 in executions in 2004 but death sentences abate [more]
The case is strong and clear against executions [more]
So many people in California have been sentenced to death that the state is about to spend $220 million to build a bigger death row [more]