ASHCROFT PUSHES EXECUTIONS IN MORE CASES IN NEW YORK

Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered United States attorneys in New
York and Connecticut to seek the death penalty for a dozen defendants in
cases in which prosecutors had recommended against or did not ask for
capital punishment, according to lawyers who follow the issue. Those are
nearly half of all the cases nationwide in which Mr. Ashcroft has rejected
prosecutors' recommendations in a death penalty case.

Mr. Ashcroft's decision to reject the confidential recommendations of the
federal prosecutors for 10 defendants in New York and 2 in Connecticut is
part of an aggressive effort to assure nationwide consistency in decisions
to seek the federal death penalty, federal officials say.

Under the law, the attorney general has final approval on whether to seek
the death penalty in federal cases.

The cases include a new one in Manhattan against three defendants accused
in a narcotics trafficking case that involved a triple slaying, lawyers
say. Prosecutors had recommended against the death penalty for all three
men. There is no indication that those defendants wanted to cooperate with
the government or to plead guilty.

Mr. Ashcroft's decision in that case was disclosed to lawyers in New York
this week, just days after it was revealed that he had rejected the
recommendation of federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and ordered them to seek
the death penalty against a murder suspect on Long Island who had already
agreed to plead guilty in exchange for testimony against others in a
dangerous Colombian drug ring.

The Justice Department would not comment on Mr. Ashcroft's decisions
involving the latest three defendants, which were related to The New York
Times by a defense lawyer who was told about the matter.

Barbara Comstock, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in Washington that
when the federal death penalty law was passed, Congress intended that it be
applied equally and "in a consistent and fair manner across the country."

"What we are trying to avoid," she said, "is one standard in Georgia and
another in Vermont."

Ms. Comstock said the attorney general was "committed to the fair
implementation of justice," and she cited the "multiple levels of review"
conducted at Justice Department headquarters and the local United States
attorneys' offices "to provide consistency."

"The people involved in the death penalty review process at Main Justice
have the benefit of seeing the landscape of these cases nationwide, thereby
ensuring consistency in U.S. attorney districts across the country," she
said. "The department is confident that this process works."

James B. Comey, the United States attorney in Manhattan, also refused to
address specific cases, but said, "I have been a federal prosecutor in
Virginia and New York, two states with very different death penalty
traditions, so I appreciate the need for someone to take a national view to
ensure consistency."

He said decisions on death penalties were "often very close calls, so the
fact that the attorney general and a U.S. attorney reach a different
conclusion does not mean that one of them is out to lunch."

Mr. Ashcroft's aggressive approach in the New York region was criticized
yesterday by lawyers who said the best way to eliminate geographic
disparities in capital punishment was not to increase its use but to reduce
it. No federal court jury in New York City has yet returned a verdict for
the death penalty since the revised federal capital punishment laws were
passed more than a decade ago.

"They want to set a consistent national standard for these cases," said
David A. Ruhnke, who represents a defendant in the new Manhattan case, "but
the standards they're using are the standards used by Texas district
attorneys running for re-election."

Mr. Ruhnke said he was speaking generally of Mr. Ashcroft's approach, and
he declined comment on how Mr. Ashcroft's decision might apply to his
client, Elijah Bobby Williams.

Mr. Williams and the two other defendants, who will now face the death
penalty in Federal District Court in Manhattan, are in the same family,
records show. In addition to Mr. Williams, the defendants are his brother,
Xavier, and son, Michael. All three men have pleaded not guilty to charges
of racketeering, which include narcotics trafficking and three killings.

The national total of 28 defendants in cases where Mr. Ashcroft has
rejected recommendations against the death penalty or where the prosecutors
did not seek it has been calculated by Kevin McNally, a lawyer based in
Kentucky, who helps run the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project.
The nationwide project provides information to lawyers defending in capital
cases.

"They are attempting to bring the federal death penalty to areas of the
country like the Northeast that are less hospitable to the death penalty
than the traditional death penalty states," Mr. McNally said. "This is not
an accident or a statistical fluke. This is a deliberate decision to
require not a few but many death penalty trials in the Northeast and in New
York in particular."

The Justice Department does not discuss individual cases, and Mr. McNally
compiled his data from defense lawyers and other sources. The Times was
able to confirm the details of the cases in the New York metropolitan area
independently.

Two other defendants who now face a death penalty prosecution in Manhattan
as a result of the attorney general's directive are Alan Quinones and Diego
Rodriguez. Both men are accused of torturing and killing a man whom they
correctly suspected of being a government informant, court documents show.
They have each pleaded not guilty.

Avraham C. Moskowitz, a lawyer for Mr. Rodriguez, said he believed that Mr.
Ashcroft was pushing for more death penalty cases in New York City and its
suburbs because the government has not yet obtained one there. "I think
there's a commitment to getting it done, to showing it can be done here,"
he said.

The Rodriguez and Quinones cases received widespread publicity last year
after a federal judge, Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court, ruled
in their case that the current federal death penalty law was
unconstitutional, citing the growing number of exonerations of death row
inmates through DNA and other evidence.

Judge Rakoff's ruling was overturned on appeal, and the death penalty case
against the two men is proceeding.

The other cases in the region in affected by Mr. Ashcroft's decisions
include one in Binghamton, N.Y. that involves three men who, according to
prosecutors, were cocaine dealers who killed a marijuana dealer. Defense
lawyers argue that one of the defendants is mentally retarded and that
executing him would violate federal death penalty standards.

In the Connecticut case, the Justice Department surprised lawyers for two
defendants in late January by notifying them that federal prosecutors there
would seek execution. They are charged along with other defendants in the
1996 killing in Hartford of the leader of a gang known as the Savage Nomads.

Mr. Ashcroft has also ordered the death penalty sought in a case in
Vermont, which is in the same federal appeals court district as New York
and Connecticut.

That case involved charges of a carjacking and kidnapping that ended when
the 53-year-old victim was beaten to death.