Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 20, 1991 TAG: 9102200620
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
"We're very upset," Earl Jones said Tuesday after Wilder commuted Joseph Giarratano's death sentence to life imprisonment with parole possible in 13 years.
Giarratano had been scheduled to die Friday in Virginia's electric chair. He was convicted in 1979 of fatally stabbing Jones' sister-in-law, Barbara Kline, 44, and raping and strangling the woman's 15-year-old daughter, Michelle, in Norfolk.
Wilder, a possible Democratic candidate for president, acted for political reasons, Jones said from his Delmar, Del., home.
"I hope this man never becomes president. I could never live in a country that would allow him to be president," he said.
Wilder received nearly 6,000 telephone calls and letters from as far away as Europe asking him to spare Giarratano, who has become a prominent jailhouse lawyer writing for such publications as the Yale Law Journal.
Giarratano's supporters said evidence shows he may be innocent of the murders that he says he does not remember committing.
The inmate's celebrity supporters included conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick and liberal entertainers Joan Baez and Mike Farrell.
Wilder enhanced his standing with the Democratic Party's liberal wing by sparing Giarratano, said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst.
"Liberal Democrats have become concerned that Wilder is too conservative. He I hope this man [Wilder] never becomes president. I could never live in a country that would allow him to be president Earl Jones Relative of victims has proved that his toughness is tempered by mercy," Sabato said.
Those liberal Democrats are likely to vote in the Iowa caucuses and early presidential primary states, he said.
Wilder has proved he is a death penalty supporter by refusing to intervene in three other executions since he took office in January 1990, Sabato said.
He said Wilder removed himself from further involvement in the case by leaving a decision on whether Giarratano should get a new trial to Attorney General Mary Sue Terry.
The inmate's supporters wanted Wilder to order a new trial but the governor said the state constitution forbids him from doing that.
Instead, he commuted Giarratano's sentence to life imprisonment with parole possible after he serves 25 years. Giarratano has been on death row for 12 years, so he could be freed in 13 years.
Giarratano had until 5 p.m. today to accept the pardon. His attorneys were attempting to get a clearer picture of what the conditional pardon entailed.
by CNB