August 31 MASSACHUSETTS: DA in rift with feds over death penalty For months, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley worked alongside DEA and ATF officials to secure murder indictments against 2 Dorchester gangbangers who allegedly killed a rival in 2001. But now, with the death penalty hanging over the heads of Darryl Green and Branden Morris in a trial due to start in weeks, Conley says he may not cooperate with the feds again should a similar case arise in the future. "I believe that life in prison without the possibility of parole is proper in this case," Conley said yesterday, hours after a federal District Judge Nancy Gertner denied arguments by the defendants to have the death penalty removed as possible punishment if they are found guilty. Conley acknowledged he is powerless to prevent the Drug Enforcment Administration or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or another federal authority from going after local gangbangers who push drugs on the community. But he said he can limit the amount of cooperation local authorities extend to the feds. "We'll have to consider in the future whether we'll seek to incorporate them in any murder investigation that may go the same route," Conley said. Green, 28, and Morris, 22, are charged with killing Terrell Gethers during the annual Caribbean festival in 2001. The defendants allegedly belonged to the Esmond Street Crew, a gang heavy into crack-cocaine distribution. Gethers allegedly belonged to the rival Franklin Hill Giants. DEA and ATF agents, with Boston police, conducted an undercover investigation against the Esmond Street Crew, Conley said. In securing the death penalty as possible punishment against Green and Morris, the feds, Conley said, are undermining his efforts in crime-ridden communities because many ministers and activists who help authorities are against capital punishment. The Rev. William Dickerson of the Greater Love Tabernacle in Dorchester said, "My heart goes out to the Gethers family . . . But I also think that the death penalty is flawed in this country and I believe a person experiences much more pain if they (have to live and) deal with the fact they took another human life." (source: Boston Herald) NEW YORK: 'Times' Gives Morgenthau a Death Sentence----Paper backs Snyder over NYC's liberal beacon Okay, lets see if we can figure this out together. The New York Times says that if Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau were seeking only his 5th term, theyd be for him. In Tuesdays paper, the editorial writers say hes almost an icon, mentally sharp and in good health at 86. They offer no criticism of his actual performance as D.A., and instead just disagree with him about whether there should be a special court to handle the boroughs less than 1,000-a-year domestic violence cases, or a community court in midtown near their office. Then, like a tough sentencing judge, they give him a career-ending sentence - endorsing his opponent, Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder - in part because Morgenthau refused recently to express sufficient remorse about a 15-year-old case reversed on account of new evidence. In its 109th year of one-family rule, the Sulzberger Times decrees that it's "time for a change" after a mere 30 "legendary" years of our one Morgenthau. Though the city's liberal beacon has used the death penalty as a measure of many candidates before Snyder, it dismisses her support of it in a single sentence. It does not even tell its readers that the ex-judge declared in her own autobiography, happily entitled Twenty-Five to Life, that she volunteered in open court once to administer the lethal injection herself. Had the New York Court of Appeals not recently overturned the states death penalty statute by 4 to 3, the Times might have been more concerned about the potentially deadly consequences of its endorsement. After all, Morgenthau stood tall for the decade that the statute appeared on the books, refusing to seek an execution despite periodic drumbeats for blood. Snyder whispers now, except when she's with the police groups that back her, that she favors execution just in the most "heinous" cases. If she lasts as D.A. a term or two, we might find out what she means by "heinous," and Manhattan, of all places, could wind up wearing its own black mask. After all, even the Times faulted her for "a worrisome fondness for publicity." Imagine how much airtime on Fox she could get with a single injection. The Times says shes a lawyer of "unquestioned ability" even though she practices no law at her private firm, which hired her after she rewarded it with a million-dollar court appointment. The papers only comment about an actual duty of the D.A.s office is to express concern, based on Snyders comments, that she will "abandon" Morgenthaus long history of Wall Street prosecutions. They said they "trust" her not to, even though shes assailed Morgy for wasting resources on white-collar crimes. The Times has made it a practice in recent years to throw in the trash thousands of its own editorial words so it could endorse George Pataki in 1998 and 2002, and Rudy Giuliani in 1997, both of whom it tirelessly slammed before shamelessly embracing them. In Morgenthaus case, it has done the opposite, inexplicably damning a man it has so long admired. (source: Village Voice)
