"It's An Opinionated Web Site. I Don't Apologize For That."

PROSECUTOR'S INTERNET SITE DRAWS STRONG REACTIONS

Web surfers praise, assail tough talk on crime, punishment

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson is
taking his fight against crime to the world with a tough-talking Web site
that supports victims and blisters wrongdoers and "the anti-death penalty
bunch."

Larson's novel Internet site, complete with flames dancing around his
"Outrage of the Month" and an animated "Sharp Eye" on justice, has drawn
national attention for mixing court and crime news with strong
procapital-punishment and anti-parole messages.

Far from the sites used by many prosecutors to offer routine information,
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com -- billed as the "Criminal Justice Weekly News:
A Prosecutor's Perspective" -- combines Larson's conservative views and
offbeat sense of humor with a harsh tone toward people who commit crimes
and anyone who advocates leniency.

"Kentuckians have never understood why the anti-death penalty bunch never
mentions the victims of these killers, or what was done to them," Larson
wrote in one piece. "They refuse to acknowledge the horrible things done to
innocent murder victims. . . . Somehow they want us to feel sorry for these
vicious murderers."

Larson, who is responsible for prosecuting all felonies in Lexington, isn't
afraid to take on judges who do something he questions. Even Catholic nuns
aren't spared.

"I have too much fun with it," said Larson, the local prosecutor since
1985. "It's an opinionated Web site. I don't apologize for that."

But the Rev. Patrick Delahanty, a Catholic priest who heads the Kentucky
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said Larson largely uses the site
to spread death-penalty misinformation -- such as citing only some results
of polls and reporting studies that death-penalty opponents claim are
biased and inaccurate. Delahanty thinks the Web site is a waste of public
money.

Larson's electronic postings are so unusual that "The Prosecutor," a
publication of the National District Attorneys Association, wrote about the
site in September.

Frank Winters, chief of police in Clayton, N.J., heads a victims' rights
committee for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He was
checking Internet sites kept by prosecutors to learn about programs for
victims when he found Larson's postings. Now, he's a fan.

"I don't know that I've seen as much editorializing anywhere else," Winters
said. "At first, I thought it was just a supporter, but then I realized
this is your prosecutor. . . . I just chuckled to myself. I'd be proud of
being part of that law enforcement community."

Larson, who won his last re-election without opposition, writes all the
stories on the site, and he doesn't hesitate to inject his views.

Among other things, Larson believes most news reporters have little
understanding of the criminal justice system and therefore present an
inaccurate picture to readers. He'll point to what he considers
questionable rulings by judges -- but so far, not those he argues cases
before in Lexington.

The site recently posted an item about the shock probation granted to
Patricia Vaughn, wife of the man who shot and killed Cumberland County
Commonwealth's Attorney Fred Capps. She had pleaded guilty to facilitation
to murder because she drove her husband part of the way to Capps' house,
and was sentenced to four years in prison. The name of Circuit Judge James
Weddle, who granted Vaughn's probation, appears in red, and the story notes
that the Kentucky Parole Board had earlier denied parole for Vaughn.

"Regardless, Judge James Weddle still let her out of jail early on shock
probation," Larson wrote.

In an interview, Larson said, "I'm not going after the judge. He went after
himself. . . . I'm just reporting what he did."

Weddle said he hadn't seen the piece but would make a point to look it up.

"I've known Ray for a long time," the judge said. "I like him but I can't
say anything about that."

Criticizing a judge's decision is within Larson's First Amendment rights
and doesn't pose any ethical problem as long as the criticism isn't
personal, said Kent Westberry, a Louisville lawyer who is vice
president-elect of the Kentucky Bar Association.

Jennifer dean, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Ben Chandler, said many
lawyers in Chandler's office often visit Larson's site and find it
"informative."

Dean, who runs Chandler's Internet site, said she's trying to make it more
exciting but doubts if she will model anything on Larson's. "I don't think
we'll be adding animated flames any time soon," she said.

Larson writes at night and on weekends. He said the site costs $39 a month,
with the money coming from seized drug assets. He and his staff maintain it
during their spare time.

"My son's away at school, and my wife is a teacher and she grades papers at
night, so I have a lot of free time," he said.

Last year, after a group of nuns in Springfield, Ky., started a national
campaign to ring church bells for two minutes on every day an execution is
carried out in the United States, Larson went on the offensive.

"It's the same old anti-death penalty song, just another verse," he wrote.
"Once again, death penalty opponents are doing all they can to make martyrs
out of convicted and condemned murderers. Just like all the rest, however,
they express no concern whatsoever for the thousands of innocent victims
these murderers chose to viciously kill."

Then he offered a suggestion: "Why not ring the bells for two minutes every
time an innocent victim is executed by a murderer anywhere in the United
States? The only problem is the bells may never stop ringing."

Jo Ann Phollips, executive director of Kentuckians Voice for Crime Victims,
checks Larson's site weekly.

"It's great," she said. "There is so much information and it puts people in
touch with . . . things a lot of people would never read."

She said "it just gives a whole new perspective to crime news."

On the site, Larson cites polls and studies that support the death penalty
and lists the people on Kentucky's death row, along with sometimes gruesome
details about their crimes.

"Web-voters want child killers to face the death penalty," one entry says.

Delahanty, the head of the antideath-penalty group, said he quit reading
the site after Larson blocked people from voting multiple times in his
online polls. Delahanty and others sometimes voted numerous times to skew
the results, prompting Larson to take them to task online.

Larson, in the interview, said he didn't think priests were supposed to
"cheat. . . . As a prosecutor, I assume that almost everyone plays by the
rules, but Delahanty, it turns out, doesn't."

Delahanty said rigging the surveys wasn't any more dishonest than Larson
presenting them as accurate gauges of public opinion. He suggested that the
money spent on the site would be better spent helping crime victims or on
programs designed to keep children out of trouble.

Larson fired back: "I could just as easily say his time could be better
spent helping the same people he's talking about rather than going around
chasing windmills."

Larson has received responses -- positive and negative -- from readers
worldwide.

One came from Denmark: "Sorry, but your site, your opinions, the way you
think makes me sick," wrote R.S.G., a member of an anti-death penalty
group. "Praise God, someday people like you will not be on the earth."

To that, Larson responded in an editor's note: "I guess we will have to put
R.S.G. in the undecided column."