NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, January 17, 1995
5B
Susan Smith could get electric chair for drowning her two sons
Mother sobbed as trial date was set for April 24
The Associated Press
UNION, S.C. — Susan Smith covered her eyes and sobbed, her chest heaving, as the charges detailing how she drowned her two young sons were read in court yesterday. The prosecutor promised to seek the death penalty.
After her lawyer said she was not ready to enter a plea, Smith was led back to the defense table, wiping her hands across her face several times as her tears continued.
Judge Costa Pleiones entered a not guilty plea on her behalf and set trial for April 24.
A gas rose from the onlookers in
the packed courtroom when prosecutor Tommy Pope said he would seek to have Smith put to death in the electric chair if she was convicted.
He said execution would be warranted because of two aggravating circumstances: the killing of two or more people and the killing of a child younger than 11.
Two months ago, Smith told the world that a carjacker had driven off with her boys, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex, then finally confessed that she had sent her own carpling into a lake with the boys strapped inside.
Among those in court yesterday were Smith's mother and stepfather. Her estranged husband, David Smith, was not there.
At the end of the five-minute hearing, Smith sat back in her chair and sobbed.
At her first court appearance two
months ago, one woman shouted,
"Hold your head up! You're a baby
murderer!" Another yelled that she
should die like her sons.
There were no such outbursts yesterday, and much of the venom in her hometown, a rural community about 60 miles northwest of Columbia, seems to have subsided.
"There's some people that say probably the best punishment she could get would be to leave her the way she is now, to have to live day to day with those thoughts in her mind," Union County Council Chairman Donnie Betenbaugh said.
Because Smith's previous court appearances created such a frenzy, her lawyer said he had asked that she be excused from today's hearing, but Pope demanded her presence.
down a boat ramp into a lake with her sons inside.
In her two-page confession, Smith said she was suicidal and emotionally distraught over unrequited love on Oct. 25 when she let her car roll
Smith, who was divoring her husband, said she felt she could not be a good mother, "but I didn't want my children to grow up without a mom. I felt I had to end our lives to protect us all from an grief or harm. My children, Michael and Alex, are with our Heavenly Father now, and I know that they will never be hurt again. As a mom, that means more than I can say," she wrote.
For nine days, Smith made tearful pleas for the carjacker to return her children. The town helped search and praved for the boys' safety.
After she confessed to police and the children's bodies were found submerged in her car on Nov. 3, people in Union turned from supporting one of their own to horror at her deed.
Smith has been held without bail since her arrest.
Poor health, threats don't bother pope's tour
The Associated Press
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — Unfazed by an assassination plot in the Philippines, Pope John Paul II greeted his flock in Papua New Guinea on Monday from an open pickup truck that shielded him only from the sun.
Police on this South Pacific island, meanwhile, were trying to quash rumors of a threat to the pontiff,
insisted that two Iranian carpet salesmen who left right before he arrived were not considered possible assassins.
Papua New Guinea is the second stop on an 11-day palour tour burdened by concerns over security and the 74-year-old pope's health.
Security for the pontiff, who survived a 1981 assassination attempt, had already been tightened because of threats that Muslim extremists
would try to bomb an American plane to protest John Paul's tour.
The pope ended his speech in pidgin English, the common tongue in Papua New Guinea, saying "God bless yupela olgeta," or "God bless you all."
The pope seemed more concerned about the billions of unconverted souls in Asia than his personal safety.
He predicted "a new springtime" for Christianity in Asia and said the
church's task was to spread the faith through the continent. He was said to have been unruffled about the report that his life had been in danger in Manila.
"It is my desire and purpose to strengthen the Christian faithful of this country," John Paul said.
The pope is to leave Wednesday for Australia, then go to predominantly Buddhist Sri Lanka, the last stop on his tour.
Yale in battle over 'dead, white men,' Western Civ money
The Associated Press
NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Behind Yale University's serene Gothic architecture, professors have been battling over a pot of gold and the course of Western civilization.
Lee Bass, a 1979 Yale graduate from Texas, gave his alma mater $20 million in 1991 to create a course of study in the ancient thinkers, artists and other figures who shaped the Western European culture from which modern American society stems.
More than three years later, the course hasn't even been designed.
Conservative students and professors suspect liberals are behind the delay, suggesting they want to block a course that they say emphasizes the achievements of white men and minimizes the contributions of women and minorities.
Yale President Richard Levin is trying to squelch with such conspiracy theories and says plans for the money should be announced soon.
The issue became public after a student, writing in a conservative student magazine, accused Levin of bowing to pressures from liberal professors and implied that Yale
gave other courses, such as Asian American history and gay and lesbian studies, a higher priority.
"There were serious behind-the-scenes efforts to co-opt the money for liberal causes," wrote Pat Collins, a 20-year-old junior from Tustin, Calif.
Yale spokesman Gary Fryer denied any such scheme existed.
"We already have enormously rich and robust offerings in Western civilization," Fryer said, pointing out some 100 related courses. "The question is, what is the right approach to enhance the Western civilization curriculum further?"
Collins also wrote in the article "Whatever Happened to Western Civ?" that Levin had bamboozled Bass and failed to keep him informed about what was happening with the program.
He noted that Bass' money was paying the salaries of five professors who hadn't yet taught the course and who otherwise would be paid out of the university's general budget.
Bass has been silent about the debate, as have other members of his family, who have given $80 million to Yale from a fortune made in oil, real estate, hotels and other holdings.
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