STATE, FEDS EYE STIFFER PENALTIES, SWAP CASES

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- State and federal prosecutors traded two Wilmington
criminal cases this month as part of a strategy to choose the venue in
which defendants can get the harshest possible sentence.

Federal prosecutors let their counterparts in the New Hanover County
District Attorney's Office press a bank robbery charge as a tool to help
get that defendant a death sentence if convicted in an unrelated murder case.

And state prosecutors handed over another man's drug cases so his potential
sentence would nearly triple in federal court.

Janice McKenzie Cole, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North
Carolina, said the strategy began this summer when President Clinton asked
the Justice and Treasury departments to work on crime reduction. District
U.S. attorneys devised plans that included working with local authorities
to identify violent and habitual offenders and the best system in which to
prosecute them.

"We do want to look at cases and determine where we get the most effective
prosecution," she said.

Two such transactions happened here within days of each other this month.

District Attorney John Carriker wouldn't discuss the issue.

Facing several drug charges in New Hanover County Superior Court, Monterie
Junious could have received a maximum 43 years if convicted as an habitual
felon in that court. But prosecutors thought he deserved worse and talked
with the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Mr. Junious has several convictions in New Hanover County Superior Court,
including at least one violent felony. He escaped a second-degree murder
charge in January when an eyewitness recanted his statement to police,
forcing prosecutors to drop the charge.

He had been charged in the slaying of Richard Gubala, 33, who was severely
beaten on Oct. 26, 1997, and died three days later.

Prosecuting Mr. Junious on the drug charges under the state habitual felon
law would have dramatically increased his potential sentence in those
cases. But the District Attorney's Office saw federal prosecution as a
better way to deal with him.

New Hanover County prosecutors dropped the drug charges against Mr. Junious
on Oct. 29, and he was indicted in U.S. District Court in Greenville Nov. 4
on three charges of possessing with the intent to distribute crack cocaine.

His maximum possible sentence went from 43 years in state court to 120
years in federal court, prosecutors said.

"I think certainly, when we have an individual who we think is an habitual
felon and is prone to violence, we're going to take steps to get the
biggest sentence we can," said Griff Anderson, the New Hanover County
prosecutor who was handling several of Mr. Junious' cases.

In the second case that changed hands this month, death is the harsh|est
possible sentence, and New Hanover County prosecutors want it.

On Nov. 1, a New Hanover County grand jury indicted Kwada Temoney on a bank
robbery charge dating back to 1996. The case had been languishing in the
hands of federal prosecutors for more than a year, so Assistant District
Attorney John Sherrill asked the U.S. Attorney's Office if he could press
it himself. Federal prosecutors agreed, Mr. Sherrill said.

He said he made the request late last month, after he and Mr. Temoney's
lawyers in another one his cases - the 1996 murder of 27-year-old Donald
Brunson - decided last month to postpone his Nov. 1 murder trial. The
advantage of attempting to squeeze the bank robbery trial ahead of the
capital murder trial is that a conviction in the robbery can be used to
secure the death penalty if Mr. Temoney is convicted in the murder case.

On Wednesday, Mr. Sherrill asked Senior Resident Judge Ernest Fullwood for
permission to try the robbery ahead of the Brunson murder case. Mr. Temoney
is accused of robbing the Central Carolina Bank branch on South 17th Street
at gunpoint less than four months before the murder happened.

Mr. Sherrill asked Judge Fullwood to release the robbery case from normal
court procedures so it can be tried sooner. He argued that not allowing it
"doesn't give the jury - should they convict him on first-degree murder -
an accurate view of what kind of crimes this man has committed."

Judge Fullwood denied Mr. Sherrill's request. However, it's still possible
for Mr. Sherrill to attempt to try the robbery ahead of the murder case by
putting it on a calendar in the last few weeks of January.

Mr. Temoney could get the death penalty three times. He's also charged in
the unrelated Feb. 16, 1997, shooting deaths of 8-year-old Demetrius Greene
and 30-year old Tyrone Baker on South 10th Street.