Thursday, April 23, 1987
Paae 2
Daily Nebraskan
j (Tp f By The Associated Press
Supreme Court says deatli penalty valid despite
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court
ruled Wednesday that state death penalty
laws can be valid even if statistics
indicate they are carried out in racially
biased ways.
In its most important ruling on capi
tal punishment since 1976, the court
split 5-4 in upholding Georgia's death
penalty system even though killers of
white people in that state are far more
likely to be condemned to death than
those who kill blacks.
The ruling dashed what many death
penalty opponents considered to be
their best chance of saving hundreds of
the nearly 1,900 men and women on
death rows nationwide.
The decision removed the last legal
claim many of those inmates had raised
in fighting for their lives, but it is not
expected to dramatically quicken the
NslJMikan
Editor
Managing Editor
Assoc. News Editors
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472-1768
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James Rogers
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Mike Reilley
Jeanne Bourne
Jody Beem
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" FT'tS' i T7TI
pace of executions.
Since the Supreme Court reinstated
capital punishment in 1976, 70 U.S.
'The court is say
ing there may be
racial discrimina
tion in choosing
who lives and who
dies but it doesn't
care!
Wcxntoi
11
prison inmates have been executed by
electrocution, poison gas, firing squad
and lethal injection,
"The court is saying there may be
Iran sentences American
to 10 years for CIA spying
NICOSIA, Cyprus Iran has sent
enced an American engineer to 10
years in prison on charges of spying for
the CIA, the offical Iranian news agency
reported Wednesday.
The Islamic Republic News Agency,
monitored in Nicosia, quoted "informed
sources" for its report on the sentenc
ing of Jon Pattis, a 50-year-old tele
communications specialist. It did not
say when the trial occurred.
Pattis, employed by Cosmos Engi
neers of Bethesda, Md., worked at the
Asadabad telecommunications center
200 miles southwest of Tehran. He was
arrested last June, shortly after an
Iraqi air raid on the center that inter
rupted Iran's communications with the
outside world.
According to the news agency, he
faced seven charges related to espion
age and using a forged passport to
enter the country.
In an appearance on Iranian state
Death toll rises in
More than 100
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka Govern
ment planes bombed Tamil rebels and
the guerrillas attacked soldiers Wed
nesday, adding more than 100 dead to a
toll that has reached nearly 400 in six
days of civil war.
The attacks by both sides came a
day after a car bomb tore Colombo's
main bus station apart, killing at least
106 people and wounding 295.
The government said 80 Tamil reb
els were killed in an air raid. A military
source reported at least 36 soldiers
and police slain in guerrilla raids and
said eight rebels were killed.
Government and military figures put
racial discrimination in choosing who
lives and who dies but it doesn't care,"
Seth Waxman, a lawyer for the Con
gressional Black Caucus, said of Wed
nesday's ruling.
David Whitmore, a lawyer for the
American Civil Liberties Union in New
Orleans, said the decision removed the
last hope of a nearly a dozen of Louisia
na's 47 death row inmates.
Illinois prosecutor Mark Rotert called
the ruling "very, very good news."
"It was one of the last, best chances
to get a broad-based attack on death
penalty litigation nationwide," Rotert
said. basedontoomanyvaryingractorstoiet wiuiam n. nennquui ana justices
Justice Lewis F. Powell, writing for discriminatory intent be proved by Byron R. White, Sandra Day O'Connor
the court, said a statistical study of statistics. and Antonin Scalia.
Georgia's death penalty system "at Nationwide, about 95 percent of Joining Brennan in dissent were Jus
most indicates a descrepancy that death row inmates killed whites even tices Thurgood Marshall, Harry A.
appears to correlate with race." though blacks are more often the vie- Blackmun and John Paul Stevens.
television in October, the American
engineer said he passed information
through his company to the CIA on
Iranian military activities, oil produc
tion, inflation and food distribution.
He said he gave information about
the Asadabad complex and the warn
ing system it uses to guard against
Iraqi air raids.
civil war
die in Sri Lanka air raids
the death toll since Friday at 374 on
this island off India's tip, where Tamil
extremists have fought the Sinhalese
majority for a' separate nation since
1983.
Tamil terrorists stopped vehicles in
eastern Sri Lanka last Friday, pulled
passengers out and opened fire, killing
127 people, most of them Sinhalese.
On Monday, Tamil guerillas killed
15 Sinhalese at a village in the same
region.
Friday's attack abruptly ended a
government cease-fire aimed at renew
ing peace talks in the conflict, which
has cost more than 5,500 lives 'since
But he said the discrepancy does not
violate the Constitution's equal-pro-
tection guarantees.
But Powell said death-sentencing
decisions made by judges or juries are
In
Girl holds class at gunpoint, gives up
PHOENIX, Ariz. A eighth-grade girl held a teacher and 13 students
at gunpoint in ajunior high school classroom for about an hour Wednesday
before she gave up, authorities said.
There was no report of injury during the incident at Cholla Junior High,
police said.
"We don't know what spurred it or what she wants," police Sgt. Brad
Thiss said shortly before the girl surrendered.
John Durvin, an assistant superintendent, said that "one of the stu
dents has a large-caliber handgun in one of the classrooms."
Official: AIDS in Mexico could rise by 1991
MEXICO CITY Mexico's number of AIDS patients, now 407, could top
32,000 within four years unless the public is educated to prevent the
spread of the deadly disease, federal health officials said Tuesday.
The warning came at a press conference where federal Health Secretary
Guillermo Soperon said the time has come for frank talk about "safe sex"
talk he acknowledged could offend some people in this traditionally
conservative country.
"We have a great opportunity to reduce the possibilities" of seeing
AIDS spread from the traditional high-risk groups to the general popula
tion, said Soberon, flanked by members of a new National Committee on
AIDS Research and Control.
Tamils began fighting for an inde
pendent state in northern and eastern
Sri Lanka.
Unofficial sources said the number
of deaths since Friday could surpass
500 when final tolls from the bus ter
minal bombing and air raid are known.
A Health Ministry official, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said the
count from the car bomb might reach
200. Tamil sources said an equal number
of people may have been killed in the
air raid and shelling Wednesday on the
Tamil-dominated Jaffna Peninsula in
the north.
-i . ,
' - in
racial Ma
tims of murder in this country.
"The Baldus study does not demon
strate a constitutionally significant
risk of racial bias affecting the Georgia
capital-sentencing process," Powell
wrote.
He said McCleskey would have to
prove "that the decison-makers in his
case acted with discriminatory pur
pose." But lawyers active in fighting death
penalty laws said proving discrimina-
j ! f f J! J 1 t
"on in mamauai cases is an lmpossi-
ble task."
Powell was joined by Chief Justice
Brief
The government warned residents of
the area to stay away from obvious
targets of military action.
Tilak Ratnakara, head of the gov
ernment's Media Center, said: "We will
continue to strike at militant targets
until the civilian killings are stopped
and peace negotitations resume."
The government said its relatiatory
air strike was aimed at outposts of the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and
the Eelam Revolutionary Organization
of Students, which it blamed for the
bus station bombing. Both issued
denials from their exile headquarters
in southern India.
