"Wright: Threet pursues execution inconsistently," is the article from Sunday's Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
Betsey Wright believes Washington County Prosecuting Attorney John Threet is inconsistent in pursuing the death sentence, including the one handed down Friday for Zachariah Scott Marcyniuk.
Marcyniuk, who was sentenced by Circuit Judge William Storey, became the 40th person on Arkansas' death row and the second person from Washington County to go to death row this year.
Wright, a death penalty opponent who spent nine years as former Gov. Bill Clinton's chief of staff, said Threet is erratic in his use of the death penalty.
"I'm confused by the prosecuting attorney's lack of standards and equity," said Wright, who lives in Rogers. "He backed away from the death penalty for two people who killed small children, giving them plea bargains for life without parole. Yet, he pursued a death sentence for this mentally ill man.
"I don't think we know what his standard is. Of course, the fact that each prosecuting attorney operates differently is what makes the death penalty so political and easy to use as a threat to get leverage."
Threet considered, but later backed away from, pursuing a death sentence for Lorita Lanej, a woman who pleaded guilty last year to first-degree murder of her boyfriend's 23-monthold son.
Threet took a similar approach in the case of Abon Tili, a Springdale man who pleaded guilty in March in the killing of a 10-year-old girl.
And:
This year's increase in death sentences in Washington County bucks a national trend, said Richard Dieter, executive director of The Death Penalty Information Center. The nonprofit center, established in 1990 in Washington, analyzes capital punishment issues.
Death sentences nationally began a decline in 2000. The 1990s saw 300 people in the U.S. get death sentences in a typical year. Before the Marcyniuk case, 111 people were given death sentences this year, Dieter said.
"But two death penalties may not be a shift in a county that hasn't had any," Dieter said.
Wright said she wants to see what Threet does with his next capital murder cases and whether he'll pursue the death penalty.
"If he gets lots of public backing, he'll keep doing it," Wright said. "If he gets a voice saying it doesn't make any sense, he may back off. I don't think he's very set in concrete about why he's doing this. He seems to be real back and forth."
Threet said that's not true. He applies the same standards to each case and measures each one based on its specific circumstances, he said. He also takes into account the wishes of victims' family members.
"I'm not saying everyone gets the death penalty who qualifies, and I'm not saying no one in the county should get it," Threet said. "Each set of circumstances has to be looked at.
"It's very difficult to get the death penalty, and it should be. What's got some people stirred up is, there have been two in the same year when it's been almost 30 years before that. I didn't choose those crimes. It's just the way it happened."
The article is noted in Arkansas Times Arkansas Blog, "Who should get death?"
Betsey Wright, Bill Clinton's former gubernatorial chief of staff, wrote me yesterday about the changing standard of capital prosecutions in Washington County. She asked that the remarks be off the record. She apparently decided later to discuss the issue with a reporter in Northwest Arkansas. Wright is a death penalty opponent and spends most of her time these days working with Death Row inmates.
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