DRUG KINGPIN'S EXECUTION PROTESTED

The federal execution of drug kingpin Juan Raul Garza on Tuesday snuffed
out yet another chance for the U.S. to find a moral high ground nationally
and abroad, said former New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya.

Anaya and other capital punishment opponents gathered in Santa Fe on
Tuesday afternoon, several hours after Garza, a marijuana smuggler
convicted of murdering one man and ordering the execution of two others,
died from chemical injection at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.

"This morning our federal government executed Juan Raul Garza, but in doing
so they also killed off a little of our sense of fairness in this country,"
Anaya said. "They killed off another opportunity for this country to again
regain our moral leadership across the globe."

The death penalty opponents also said Garza's death sentence embodies
on-going discrimination against African-Americans, Hispanics and other
ethnic minorities in the federal criminal justice system.

Of the 19 men on federal death row, 17 are ethnic minorities, said Bill
Stanton, a representative of the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death
Penalty.

Wanda Ross Padilla, president of the NAACP chapter in Santa Fe, likened
federal executions to "legalized lynching with authorities being the mob."

Anaya, governor from 1983 to 1986, long has been an outspoken opponent of
the death penalty. Amid controversy, he commuted the sentences of the five
men in New Mexico awaiting execution during the waning months of his
administration.

The men's sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.

"My federal government, when they claim to be killing in the will of the
people, they are certainly not speaking for me," Anaya said.

Along with Padilla, Stanton and Anaya, a handful of death penalty opponents
stood outside the federal courthouse in Santa Fe on Tuesday. The group also
held a vigil eight days ago when Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was
executed.

The opponents called for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to continue a
study initiated by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno looking into
discrimination allegations.

About 80 percent of people charged with capital offenses in the past 10
years have been members of a minority group, the protesters said.

Padilla called for a moratorium on all executions until the study is complete.

Opinion in New Mexico appears to be swinging against enforcing the death
penalty in the state, Anaya said.

And support for repealing the death penalty in New Mexico is growing among
legislators, Stanton said. Sponsorship of a proposed measure to repeal the
law grew considerably during the most recent legislative session, he said.
The Senate defeated a death penalty repeal measure by a single vote.

Anaya also said he hopes Gov. Gary Johnson, who has become a national
advocate for the decriminalization of marijuana, would take a stance
against the death penalty.

The death penalty opponents said that the United Nations found the U.S. had
violated international treaties with Mexico in the prosecution of Garza.
The federal court system also failed to tell Garza's jurors that he would
be sentenced to life in prison without parole if he didn't receive a death
sentence, the opponents said.

The jurors assumed he would be placed on probation if they didn't sentence
him to death, according to the opponents.

The Rev. Jose F. Superiaso, associate rector of St. Francis Cathedral in
Santa Fe, said federal prisoners convicted of capital crimes should receive
life-time imprisonment without parole.

"What we are perpetuating is a cycle of violence, promoting a sense of
vengeance in our culture and therefore affirming the culture of death," he
said.

There are four men on death row in New Mexico, which hasn't executed anyone
since 1960.