DRUG DEALER ON DEATH ROW ASKS CLINTON FOR CLEMENCY

A rural Alabama marijuana grower now on federal death row today asked
President Clinton to commute his pending execution and grant him clemency.

In 1991, David Ronald Chandler, 48, of Piedmont, Ala., became the first man
sentenced to death under the federal drug kingpin law. He was convicted of
arranging the murder of Martin "Marlin" Shuler, who was informing on
Chandler's marijuana business to local law enforcement.

But since the trial, Charles Ray Jarrell, the government's star witness
against Chandler and the actual triggerman, has recanted his testimony. In
an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and in post-trial
testimony, Jarrell said Chandler had nothing to do with Shuler's murder.

Jarrell has said that, after drinking 23 beers, he killed Shuler because
Shuler badly abused his wife, who was also Jarrell's sister.

"Our judicial system, like the human beings who administer it, is
fallible," Chandler's lawyer, Jack Martin of Atlanta, said in the petition
to Clinton.

"Mr. Chandler's sentence of death should be commuted primarily because
there is now substantial doubt as to his guilt," Martin wrote. "...If a
jury now heard the case against Mr. Chandler, they would obviously have a
reasonable doubt as to his guilt."

In exchange for Jarrell's cooperation, prosecutors dropped capital murder
charges against him. He is now serving a 25-year prison sentence. Chandler
is on federal death row in Terre Haute, Ind.

Chandler's death sentence was upheld last year by a sharply divided 11th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. By a 6-5 decision, the court
dismissed allegations that Chandler's trial lawyer, Drew Redden of
Birmingham, performed so poorly during the sentencing phase of the case
that a new one was warranted.

Redden has testified that he did "basically not anything explicitly" to
prepare for Chandler's sentencing hearing. He put up only two witnesses:
Chandler's wife and mother, who gave scant testimony.

The 11th Circuit's majority decision upholding the sentence was roundly
criticized by civil rights and criminal defense lawyers and sparked angry
dissents from a number of judges on the court.

"Before we, as a civilized society, condemn a man to death, we should
expect and require more of an advocate," Judge Stanley Birch, wrote in
dissent, referring to Redden.

"The jury that sentenced him to death only heard the bad about Mr. Chandler
and nothing about the good," Martin told Clinton. "The judgment by the jury
that Ronnie Chandler should be sentenced to death is therefore thrown into
serious doubt."

Chandler's final appeal is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Typically, clemency and commutation requests are only considered when all
appeals are exhausted. But Martin is asking Clinton to grant an exception
to that rule.