A L S O +T O D A Y Beware of the black CON-servative By C.D. Ellison An African-American Republican talks back to David Horowitz Target: Saddam By Jeff Stein The goal is to bring him down this time, says David Kay, who led the first U.N. inspection team in Iraq Paula Jones lawsuit settled Salon Staff Report Clinton coughs up $850,000, but no apologies   T A B L E+T A L K Newt resigns! Mull over the soon-to-be-former speaker's decision in the Headlines area of Table Talk   R E C E N T L Y He can't go home again By Marc Cooper No matter what the House of Lords decides, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is finally being held resonsible for the death of President Salvador Allende -- and Chilean democracy (11/12/98) The costs of Mitch By Mary Jo McConahay Can a hurricane threaten the fragile new democracies of Central America? (11/12/98) A day to remember? By Jeff Stein Police and federal agents brace for violence as anti-abortion forces observe a new "holiday" (11/11/98) Can we talk? By Rebecca Bryant Gay rights groups should rethink their drive for affirmation at the ballot box after Tuesday's drubbing (11/10/98) Newtron Bomb By Bruce Shapiro Will Gingrich's self-purge save the Republican Party? (11/06/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.
		NO MERCY | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - A second juror, Sandra Ferguson, also said in a statement that Siripongs received an inadequate defense, and asked he be resentenced to life in prison. Orange Country Deputy District Attorney Jim Tanizaki, who is handling the case for the county, said the letters should be disregarded. "This juror is almost having buyer's remorse. You have to wonder what is really behind it. If you have questions you don't wait 15, 16 years. I don't find much credibility in this." Tanizaki says he is confident Siripongs is guilty of murder. An accomplice drove Siripongs from the crime, argues Tanizaki. "It's always been the opinion that there was an accomplice. It appears that whoever sat in the driver's side didn't bleed or didn't have blood," while Siripongs had wounds on his hands, he said. Siripongs' lawyers describe the injuries as defensive wounds, and argue Siripongs attempted to stop the crime. Defense papers filed with appeals in the case claim unidentified fingerprints, hair and blood were discovered at the crime scene. They suggest several possible suspects, including the sister of Siripongs' girlfriend and a man suspected of murder in Thailand. Siripongs has refused to name his accomplice, a reluctance his lawyers claim is based on his Buddhist background. "He believes if you do evil, you must do good," said his current lawyer, Linda Schilling. Naming his accomplices would compound his guilt, she says, even if it might exonerate him. "He believes punishment comes in the next life." Schilling contends the initial defense attorney, James Spellman, was too busy running for Congress to pay attention to the case. "This assignment is crazy," wrote Spellman in a memo to his supervisor at the time. "I have two 187s [murder cases] going on in Aug -- one of 'em a Spec Circs [special circumstances] -- How the hell am I to adequately prepare on this case or for that matter on my dozen or so other cases?" Spellman has not commented on the case. Siripongs' case has also brought to light a widespread but little-known section of the penal codes, the felony murder rule, applied in 37 states, according to Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. The rule allows murderers' accomplices to be charged and sentenced as if they were the actual murderers in many situations. That complex law, and its guilt-by-association overtones, may ultimately have contributed to Siripongs' death sentence. At the time of the trial, 1982, California allowed capital punishment for accomplices convicted of murder under the rule. Whether or not he was the killer, simply proving Siripongs' involvement in the robbery would have been sufficient to qualify him for capital punishment, according to Ira Robbins, a criminal law expert at American University in Washington. But the law soon changed. In 1983, the California Supreme Court "clarified" its felony murder rule to make life without parole the stiffest sentence for accomplices. The change, had it happened a year earlier, may have altered Siripongs' lawyers' tactics. But with the felony murder rule hanging over their head, it appears Siripongs' lawyers tried to prove he had nothing to do with the crime at all. "If that was the law 10 months earlier, then Siripongs' lawyers wouldn't have gone for an all-or-nothing defense," said San Francisco attorney Andrew Love, part of the legal team that defended the last person killed on California's death row, Thomas Thompson, executed in July. Siripongs' Thai background may also place Wilson, a strong capital punishment advocate, into the middle of an issue extending beyond California, to at least Washington and perhaps as far as Bangkok. Both the Thai foreign ministry and Thailand's ambassador to the United States have written Wilson seeking Siripongs' release and offering to remove him to Thailand and imprison him there, according to Wilson's office. Also, Siripongs was not offered an opportunity to consult with the Thai consulate after his arrest, a right normally guaranteed under the Vienna Convention, an international agreement that in part establishes terms for criminal cases involving foreign nationals. Thailand, however, is not a signatory to the convention. A similar case in Virginia two years ago, involving the death sentence of a Paraguayan citizen, led to an international incident. In that case, the man was executed at the insistence of Virginia Gov. Jim Gillmore, over the protest of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Hague and Paraguayan officials. A Honduran man was executed in Arizona the following week. The Thai requests are receiving no special consideration, according to the governor's office. "The question is, if it wasn't him, was there enough evidence to justify capital punishment," said criminal law expert Frank Zimring, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley's Boalt School of Law. "And it doesn't appear that there is." He does not believe Wilson will commute Siripongs' sentence, however. "The quality of mercy in California is more than strained," said Zimring. "If the governor grants mercy, they're going to have to find him a pen." SALON | Nov. 13, 1998 Marc Herman is a freelance writer in Alameda, Calif. R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S Trying to save real lives For a former "M*A*S*H" star, rolling back the death penalty tide is a much tougher ordeal than tending to the Korean War wounded on a Hollywood set. By Daniel Feingold Aug. 5, 1997