BUSH REJECTS CLEMENCY FOR DRUG LORD SET TO DIE TODAY

TERRE HAUTE, Ind., June 18 — President Bush rejected a clemency plea today
from Juan Raul Garza, a former drug kingpin convicted of three murders,
clearing the way for his execution on Tuesday morning.

The death of Mr. Garza, 44, who lost two appeals to the United States
Supreme Court earlier today, would be the second federal execution in 38 years.

Like Timothy J. McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who was executed in the
same chamber at the federal penitentiary here last week, Mr. Garza will die
by lethal injection. Unlike Mr. McVeigh, who made and detonated a bomb that
killed 168 people, Mr. Garza has seen his cause taken up by human rights
groups in this country and abroad.

His execution, originally set for August 2000, was postponed twice by
President Bill Clinton after Justice Department studies showed wide racial
and geographical disparities in the federal death penalty system. Mr. Garza
amended his plea last month and again last week, but Attorney General John
Ashcroft said today, "I do not believe there is any reason to further delay
his execution."

The Supreme Court rejected two final appeals from Mr. Garza's lawyers
today, turning aside without comment the lawyers' claims that the jury
should have been told that life in prison was an alternative to the death
sentence, and that the execution would violate two international treaties.

Mr. Garza, who was born in Brownsville, Tex., was sentenced to death there
in 1993 for the murders of three associates: Thomas Rumbo, who was shot
five times for supposedly cooperating with local law enforcement, and
Gilberto Matos and Erasmo De La Fuente, who were both killed by hit men on
orders from Mr. Garza. No evidence was ever found of any drug involvement
on the part of Mr. De La Fuente.

Mr. Garza, a high school dropout who is the son of migrant farm workers,
was the head of a drug-running operation that smuggled in tons of marijuana
from Mexico, prosecutors said. Mark Patterson, assistant United States
attorney in Corpus Christi, Tex., and the lead prosecutor in the case,
called Mr. Garza "the most violent man I've ever prosecuted." At
sentencing, prosecutors presented information about five other killings in
which Mr. Garza was believed to be involved.

These included the killing of Bernabe Sosa, Mr. Garza's 21-year-old
son-in-law, who prosecutors said was slain for losing a load of marijuana,
and of Diana Villareal. Prosecutors said Mr. Garza thought Ms. Villareal
had laughed at him at a Brownsville party and had her kidnapped and
injected with cocaine to feign an overdose. When Ms. Villareal did not die,
Mr. Garza, who was present, had her strangled, the prosecutors said.

Mr. Garza has not denied committing the murders for which he was convicted,
but his lawyers have argued that in sentencing him to death, the jury was
improperly allowed to hear testimony that he had been responsible for
killings for which he was never convicted, prosecuted or even charged.

In a statement today, Mr. Ashcroft said, "Juan Raul Garza's guilt is not in
doubt." He noted that "the jury found that Garza was responsible for eight
murders."

In addition, the attorney general said, seven of Mr. Garza's victims were
Hispanic, the presiding judge was Hispanic, and at least six of the jurors
were Hispanic. Of the six defendants in the case, all of whom were
Hispanic, the government sought the death penalty only for Mr. Garza, Mr.
Ashcroft said, concluding, "There is no evidence of racial bias in the
sentence Mr. Garza received."

His lawyers also contend that it is unfair to put Mr. Garza to death
because the federal death penalty system discriminates against members of
minorities and is applied unevenly across the nation. When he twice
postponed Mr. Garza's execution, President Clinton — who favors the death
penalty — said he was concerned about "the disturbing racial composition"
of the inmates on federal death row. The second reprieve, on Dec. 11, 2000,
came after officials here had already begun preparing for Mr. Garza's
execution.

Data gathered by the Justice Department shows that members of minorities
make up more than three-quarters of the defendants in federal capital
cases, and that federal prosecutors in five districts filed 40 percent of
the applications for the death penalty. Only 2 of the 19 people now on
federal death row are white. Fourteen are African-Americans and 3 are Hispanic.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that the death penalty as it was then
applied was unconstitutional. In 1988, Congress enacted legislation that
allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty for certain crimes. It was
first applied to drug-related crimes in what has become known as the drug
kingpin statute, which permitted a death penalty against an individual
found guilty of committing murder as part of a larger drug-running enterprise.

In 1994, Congress enacted the Federal Death Penalty Act, which greatly
expanded the crimes for which a defendant could be executed.