Date: 14. mars 1998 22:10

Sat., 3-14-98--

FLORIDA:

A bill to keep Florida's electric chair in use bounced back to the

Florida Senate on Thursday, where a committee voted to do away with many

capital appeals despite concerns that the measure might be

unconstitutional.

"Let's take on the constitution if we have to," said Sen. Jim Horne,

R-Orange Park. "Let's take on the court system. But let's make this

death penalty work."

He was referring to a bill (CS-SB 356) by Sen. Charles Williams,

D-Tallahassee, that would eliminate all death penalty appeals in state

courts except the 1st automatic review by the Florida Supreme Court.

Despite unanimous approval Thursday from the Criminal Justice Committee,

ultimate passage of the legislation is far from guaranteed. Senate

Majority Leader Locke Burt, R-Ormond Beach, as well as Democratic

senators, have expressed concerns about the bill.

Florida has executed 39 condemned killers in the 22 years since the U.S.

Supreme Court upheld the state's capital punishment law. Some 373

killers now live on death row, and 12 have been there for more than 2

decades.

Meanwhile, legislation (CS-HB 3033) to keep the 75-year-old electric

chair in use is just 1 step away from going to Gov. Lawton Chiles.

The House passed the bill 109-1 Thursday with Rep. Rudy Bradley, D-St.

Petersburg, dissenting. The bill is now in a version that the Senate

will accept when it meets next Wednesday, Burt said.

The House first passed the bill Friday. The Senate passed a slightly

different version Monday and sent the measure back to the House.

The legislation confirms electrocution as Florida's method of

execution and designates lethal injection as the backup method if a

court ever rules that electrocution is unconstitutional.

The fate of the chair came into question a year ago when a foot-long

flame erupted during the electrocution of Pedro Medina. The state

Supreme Court upheld use of the chair last October, ruling 4-3 that

death in the chair was neither cruel nor unusual.

But 2 of the justices urged lawmakers to designate a backup method of

execution. With no alternative, the nearly 400 death sentences could be

reduced to life if a court ever rules that electrocution is

unconstitutional, the justices warned.

Florida has scheduled 4 executions for an eight-day period at the end of

the month, starting on March 23. The 1st killer set to go to the

electric chair is Gerald Stano, whose electrocution scheduled for last

April was delayed by the fire.

A former short-order cook, Stano, 46, has described killing 41 women in

Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He faces execution for the death

of Cathy Lee Scharf, a 17-year-old hitchhiker from Port Orange whose body

was found in an isolated area of Brevard County. She was fatally stabbed

between December 1973 and January 1974.

(source: Tallahassee Democrat)

In Stuart, the girlfriend of a millionaire businessman convicted of

luring his Jew Jersey bus business rival to Florida and killing him has

been indicted on charges of 1st degree murder and kidanpping. A Martin

County grand jury returned the indictments Thursday against Lisa

ostello.

She is the girlfriend of Alan Mackerley, 54, who could get the death

penalty when sentenced on March 23 for killing Frank Black, 58, of

Andover, N.J.

Costello, 34, was jailed in June 1996 on a contempt charge for refusing

to tell prosecutors what she knew about Black's disappearance. A judge

ordered her released during Mackerley's trial, but on Feb. 3, before she

could get out, she was charged with Black's murder and kidnapping and

held for grand jury action.

Investigators accused her of luring Black to Florida by repeadedly

calling him with an enticing business offer. Black's plane arrived in

West Palm Beach on Feb. 24, 1996, and hs has not been senn again.

A hotel clerk has identified Costello as the woman who used a credit

card, later determined to be Black's, about 7 hours later.

(source: Associated Press)

Smuggling suspects whose boat capsized on Thursday, killing 3 Cuban

refugees including a toddler, may face the death penalty.

In a potentially groundbreaking case, federal prosecutors said yesterday

they will seek the death penalty against 3 brothers who they say arranged

the trip. Before they can file such charges, however, US Attorney

General Janet Reno must approve them.

Abel Morejon,, 34, and his brothers Nicandro, 38, and Jorge, 39, are

charged with alien smugugling. The 14 refugees who made the trip paid

$1,500 apiece.

Assistant US Attorney Yvonne Rodriguez-Schack, a lead prosecutor on the

case, said that "this is a very serious case, and we feel it is a death

penalty case."

The 3 brothers are Cuban rafters who until recently made a living selling

coconuts and avocados in the street. They left Cuba on rafts several

years ago and spent time at the Guantanamo Naval Base before coming to

South Florida.

In Hialeah, where the 3 lived together in a small apartment until about 6

months ago, some neighbors expressed surprise and dismay at the criminal

charges, but one, a man who said he was the Morejon's neighbor in Cuba,

said he would not be surprised if the allegations against the brothers

are true, stating that they "were always after dollars, always chasing

money."

Nicandro Morrejon has been married 5 times, according to his former

mother-in-law.

The refugees had left Cuba at various times and made it to Bimini in the

Bahamas, where they were awaiting entry to the USA.

The refugees or relatives in South Florida paid the brothers about

$20,000 for the voyage, authorities say. Prosecutors sayd that some

refugees were to work off their passage by toiling for the Morejons.

But the mission went wrong early Thursday when the 24-foot stolen boat

capsized within view of land after leaving Bimini Wednesday; seas were

high and the weather was cold.

Aurelio and Raquel Sanchez died of hypothermia; their daughter,

Elizabeth, 4, who other refugees said was dead before the boat capsized,

was lost at sea.

As waves got larger, the men on the boat passed their life vests to

women and children, the refugees told authorities.

After the US Coast Guard arrived, 6 were taken to local hospitals. 5

others are being held at the Krome Detention Center. The Cuban refugees

who paid the Morejons for passage may testify against the brothers.

INS spokesman Lemar Wooley said that "we are allowing them to stay in the

US so they can be witnesses against their smugglers." The refugees will

also likely reveal how their families paid for their passage.

Legal amd immigration observers say this might be the 1st time federal

prosecutors have pursued the death penalty in a smuggling case.

Provisions in the Illegal Immigration reform and Individual

Responsibility Act of 1996 increase penalties for alien smuggling.

Ira Kurzban, 1 of South Florida's most prominent immigration

attorneys, said that "it is fair to say it is the 1st time, to my

knowledge, that the death penalty would be sought in a case of

smuggling refugees."

For now, all 3 brothers are being held without bond; a hearing is set

for Wednesday. Arraignment will be on March 27.

(source: Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)