ALABAMIAN IS NO CRIMELORD, SHOULDN'T DIE, SAY FRIENDS

Defenders insist Ronnie Chandler was a rural drug grower with a soft heart,
not a ruthless boss who ordered a man killed.

Piedmont, Ala. --- They came to say that Ronnie Chandler is a
compassionate, charitable man, even though he oversaw a large-scale
marijuana ring here in the Appalachian foothills.

They also came to proclaim Chandler's innocence in a homicide, although he
is set to become one of the first federal prisoners put to death since 1963.

And they urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Chandler's appeal, which
appears to be the last chance, barring a presidential pardon or
commutation, for him to avoid execution.

"We're here to help the truth come out for a husband, a father and a friend
who was put on death row by lies and deceit," family friend Debbie McFry
told a rally Saturday at Fagan's Park in Piedmont. "We want to be heard all
the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court."

More than 100 people, many wearing "Ronnie Chandler is innocent on death
row" T-shirts, listened to gospel music and heard speakers call for his
release.

"He's worth fighting for and worth saving," said Hank Sanders, a state
senator from Selma. "I know in my heart he's innocent."

Another speaker, Bo Cochran, said he was on Alabama's death row for 19
years before being exonerated. He said he got to know Chandler while both
were in state prison and that he remains convinced of Chandler's innocence.

In 1991, David Ronald Chandler became the first man sentenced to death
under the federal drug kingpin law.

A Birmingham jury found that Chandler hired a triggerman to kill Marlin
"Marty" Shuler, who was informing police on Chandler's marijuana growing
and distribution operation.

Chandler now sits on federal death row in Terre Haute, Ind., where he would
be put to death by lethal injection. But the former contractor's guilt
remains strongly contested. In interviews with The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution and in post-trial testimony, the triggerman, Charles
Ray Jarrell, has said he lied at trial when he pinned the killing on Chandler.

Jarrell, whose cooperation led prosecutors to drop death penalty charges
against him, says Chandler did not order him to kill Shuler. Instead,
Jarrell now says, he committed the killing because Shuler was abusing his
wife and mother-in-law, who are Jarrell's sister and mother.

But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, in a decision issued
in July, rejected Chandler's innocence claims.

And the Atlanta appeals court also rejected Chandler's claims that his
lawyer's performance during the sentencing phase of the trial was so
inadequate a new jury should be allowed to sentence him again.

Before the 1991 trial, Chandler's lawyer failed to look for evidence that
could have been used in mitigation of capital punishment. And Chander's new
lawyers have since found dozens of people in the Piedmont area who said
they would have testified, had they only been contacted, about Chandler's
uncommon acts of kindness.

These witnesses have said Chandler brought shoes, clothing, firewood and
groceries to poor families and children, provided jobs to those without
them, built a fellowship hall for his church and a ramp for a disabled man
so he could get in and out of his home.

But by a 6-5 majority, the 11th Circuit set an important precedent, saying
trial lawyer Drew Redden's efforts were good enough. Chandler's appeal to
the U.S. Supreme Court, filed last month, urges the court to overturn that
part of the court's decision.

Chandler's new attorney, Jack Martin of Atlanta, called the 11th Circuit's
ruling "unprecedented and ill-conceived." The decision "perverts the
reasoning and underlying premises" of an important 1984 high court decision
that established the test for determining whether ineffective lawyering
should warrant a new trial, Martin said in his appeal.

By the end of the year, the high court is expected to decide whether to
hear the appeal.