STATE JOINS ASHCROFT'S EXECUTION WISH LIST

Nobody's looking to execute David "Murder One" Williams. But Luke "Mega"
Jones, named in the same federal indictment, is a different story.

The government wants Jones to pay with his life for a lengthy career of
drug dealing and violence.

With the Jones case, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has added
Connecticut to the list of states in which he has trumped the decisions of
local federal prosecutors. He has directed federal prosecutors to seek a
death sentence against the Bridgeport drug kingpin.

Jones' case marks the first federal death penalty case in Connecticut, and
brings to 16 the number of times Ashcroft - in 18 months in office - has
overridden the recommendation of the prosecutors handling the case and
ordered them to pursue the death penalty.

"It's a single-handed attempt to nationalize the death penalty,
transporting a Texas-style death penalty to places where it doesn't quite
fit," said Kentucky lawyer Kevin McNally, a coordinator of the Federal
Death Penalty Resource Council Project.

"It's the line prosecutor who knows the case, knows the district, knows the
dynamics and can make a better decision about whether the extraordinary
resources these cases require is worth the effort," said McNally, whose
council tracks federal death penalty cases and the decision-making process.

In 5 1/2 years in office, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, parted ways
with local prosecutors and ordered a death sentence to be sought in 26
cases, McNally said. But Reno's rulings predated several U.S. Supreme Court
rulings in recent months curtailing use of the death penalty. They also
largely predated growing national consensus to abolish the death penalty,
and a moratorium on its use in two death penalty states, Illinois and Maryland.

In addition to Ashcroft's intervention in a higher percentage of cases, 14
of the 16 cases in which he has directed prosecutors to seek a death
sentence involve nonwhite defendants.

McNally was asked if he believes race is a factor in the decision- making
process. "I know it's a fact 14 are nonwhite," he replied.

Questions were raised about the disproportionate number of nonwhite
defendants in federal death penalty cases, and documented in a September
2000 U.S. Department of Justice report that predated Ashcroft's tenure. In
a revised report last year, the Justice Department attributed much of the
disparity to large-scale organized drug trafficking.

The federal government's energetic prosecution of these cases, the revised
report states, "results in a high proportion of minority defendants in
potential capital cases, arising from the lethal violence associated with
the drug trade."

Jones fits snugly into that rationale.

Authorities say Jones, 34, ran a lucrative drug ring in two housing
projects and several other sections of Bridgeport and killed rivals to
protect his turf. He was convicted in 1986 of manslaughter while still a
teen and was arrested several times in the mid-1990s and charged with
murder. The federal indictment states that he repeatedly threatened
witnesses against him.

Jones is charged with killing Monteneal Lawrence in November 1998 and
Anthony Scott in June 1999, and attempting to kill Lawson Day in January 1999.

Jones is exposed to a federal death sentence because he is charged with
committing murder in the aid of racketeering. The criminal enterprise he
ran revolved around the sale of heroin and cocaine.

"Here's what it comes down to in a nutshell," said Robert Casale, who
represents Jones. "If rival drug dealers have a shootout in the street,
then the survivor gets to be murdered by the government. And it really
doesn't matter who it is. Each of these [fellow gang members who have
agreed to become government witnesses] was a defendant. It's not about
getting rid of the bad guys. The only distinction is, the government kills him.

"What end does this serve?" Casale asked. "Is this place any safer? Are we
making America safe like this?"

Attorney Monica Goodling, an adviser in Ashcroft's office, would not
discuss Jones' case or the rationale behind seeking a death sentence. "We
decline to comment on questions involving the criteria we use," Goodling said.

Cases eligible for the federal death penalty are screened by a review
committee of senior lawyers at the Justice Department in Washington.
Ashcroft then examines all findings of the review committee. In Jones'
case, the review committee made a recommendation to seek the death penalty
in 2000 - the first of 11 Connecticut cases the committee reviewed from
1995 to 2000 to receive such a recommendation.

Ashcroft this summer endorsed the committee's recommendation. On July 31,
U.S. Attorney John Danaher III filed a "notice of intent to seek a sentence
of death."

Danaher would not discuss Jones' case or its metamorphosis into a death
case. "We don't comment on the inner workings of the process," Danaher said.

A slew of co-defendants, including two of his brothers and two of his
nephews, were named in the same indictment as Jones. David "Murder One"
Williams, another of the co-defendants, is cooperating with prosecutors and
does not face a death sentence, but his credibility is suspect. Williams
pleaded guilty last week to perjury in connection with statements he made
before the grand jury, Casale said.

Casale said he and co-counsel Charles Tiernan plan to launch numerous
challenges to the use of the federal death penalty in Jones' case, and will
claim federal intrusion into a jurisdiction that should belong solely to
the state.

"This case is a lot more about states' rights than it is about the rights
of Jones," Casale said. "The feds have an existing drug task force
constantly cherry-picking these cases."

Connecticut has a state death penalty and six men on death row. A federal
death case here is not as jarring as it would be, say, in Vermont, a state
without a death penalty. But local culture did not stop Ashcroft from
directing Vermont U.S. Attorney Peter Hall to seek a death sentence against
Donald Fell, accused of a particularly brutal interstate carjacking,
kidnapping and murder.

Fell, whose co-defendant committed suicide in prison, had reached a plea
agreement with the U.S. attorney's office that would have resulted in a
life sentence. Ashcroft's directive voided the plea deal.

New Haven defense attorney Norm Pattis, who has been before the Justice
Department's death penalty review committee once and is scheduled to appear
again soon in another case, called the process "a charade."

"You don't get any written opinions, no analyses," Pattis said. "You get a
call from the government saying they're going to kill or not kill. Go watch
'The Wizard of Oz' and you get more resonance from the television screen. I
have to believe people who approve car loans do so with more compassion.
It's not a very meaningful process."

Of Luke Jones, Pattis said, "I don't know what distinguishes him from 20 or
30 prosecutions currently going on in Connecticut. ... What makes the Luke
Jones case so frightening is, as I feared, Ashcroft looks at these cases
with a presumption of death."