CLINTON AGAIN DELAYS FEDERAL EXECUTION

South Texas Drug Dealer Receives 6-Month Reprieve As Fairness Issues Studied

WASHINGTON - Just five days before the first federal execution in 37 years,
President Clinton intervened Thursday night and granted a six-month
reprieve to South Texas drug boss Juan Raul Garza.

The president said he blocked Mr. Garza's execution, which had been
scheduled for Tuesday, because of questions about the fairness of the
federal death penalty. This is the second time Mr. Clinton has delayed the
Garza death sentence, placing the convicted murderer's ultimate fate in the
hands of the next administration.

Citing a recent Justice Department study that found widespread racial and
geographic disparities in the application of the federal death penalty, Mr.
Clinton said he was delaying the execution until June to give the
government more time to interpret the meaning behind those findings.

"In issuing this stay, I have not decided that the death penalty should not
be imposed in this case, in which heinous crimes were proved. Nor have I
decided to halt all executions in the federal system," he said. "I have
simply concluded that the examination of possible racial and regional bias
should be completed before the United States goes forward with an execution
in a case that may implicate the very questions raised by the Justice
Department's continuing study.

"In this area, there is no room for error."

The decision came just hours after Mr. Clinton met at the White House with
Attorney General Janet Reno and her deputy, Eric Holder, to consider the
clemency petition filed by Mr. Garza's lawyers. The Brownsville marijuana
trafficker was sentenced to death in 1993 for the murders of three
associates, whose deaths prosecutors said he ordered as part of his
criminal enterprise. He was convicted under the federal drug kingpin act.

The president directed the Justice Department to report to his successor by
the end of April on the fairness of the federal death penalty. Gov. George
W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore both support capital punishment. Texas
has executed 152 people since Mr. Bush became governor.

Mr. Garza's lawyer, Gregory Wiercioch, offered no immediate comment. But in
earlier interviews, he had said it would be "indefensible" for the
government to execute someone as it continued to scrutinize its capital
punishment system for possible bias.

The president's action come as public debate grows over the fairness of
capital punishment and a stepped-up campaign for a moratorium on federal
executions.

The topic was thrust into the spotlight when Illinois Gov. George Ryan in
January declared a ban on executions in his state after 13 death-row
inmates were exonerated. Several other states initiated their own reviews,
and measures have been proposed in Congress to suspend or reform the
federal death penalty.

Death-penalty opponents have directed a lobbying blitz at the White House
in recent weeks, clamoring for a freeze on federal executions and a Garza
reprieve. Among the big names weighing in were former President Jimmy
Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, and a coalition that included the likes of
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, Catholic Archbishop Roger Mahony and
entertainer Barbra Streisand, a Clinton friend.

The reprieve is the second granted to Mr. Garza by the president. Mr. Garza
was originally scheduled to be executed Aug. 5, but Mr. Clinton ordered a
delay Aug. 2 to give Mr. Garza time to apply for clemency under new
guidelines drafted by the Justice Department.

Sen. Russell Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who is leading a
congressional effort for a moratorium, praised the president Thursday for
exhibiting "courage and leadership." But, he added: "A stay for only one
inmate, of course, does not completely address the systemic flaws in the
federal system."

Elisabeth Semel, director of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty
Representation Project, said the president's action fell short.

"He has acknowledged the system is grossly deficient," she said. "Therefore
it behooves him to take some action that assures fundamental fairness for
everyone impacted by the system."

Beyond the moratorium sought by Mr. Feingold and others, Mr. Clinton had
several other options: pardon, sentence commutation or he could have done
nothing and let the execution take place.

Innocence is not at issue in the Garza case. The 43-year-old father of four
acknowledged responsibility for the crimes. But he asked the president to
commute his sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole, saying the federal death penalty is "grossly biased" against
minorities.

His 96-page clemency petition leaned heavily on the September Justice
study, which found that minority defendants were involved in 80 percent of
death-penalty eligible cases tried since 1995.

Ms. Reno and her deputy expressed dismay about those findings - with Mr.
Holder saying he was "both personally and professionally disturbed by the
numbers." But she defended the essential fairness of the system, saying
there is no evidence that any of the 20 men on federal death row in Terre
Haute, Ind., are there for crimes they didn't commit.

The last federal execution occurred during the Kennedy administration when
Victor Feguer was hanged in Iowa for kidnapping and killing a doctor.