6A
Thursday, November 3, 1994
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Jury convicts abortion clinic murderer
The Associated Press
PENSACOLA, Fla. — Ajury deliberated just 20 minutes yesterday before convicting a former minister of murder in the shotgun slayings of an abortion doctor and his bodyguard.
Paul Hill, 40, could receive either life in prison or death in the electric chair. The jury will return today to decide.
Hill, acting as his own lawyer,
offered no defense during his threeday trial, refusing to make any statement or question any witnesses. Circuit Judge Frank Bell had barred him from arguing that the slayings were justifiable homicide to save fetuses.
"I have nothing to say, your honor," the blond-haired, bespectacled Hill said before deliberations began. He showed no emotion as the verdict was read. His mother, Louise Hill of Atlanta, burst into tears while his wife, Karen, remained composed.
Wielding a 12-gauge shotgun, Hill ambushed John B. Britton, 69; his unarmed bodyguard, James H. Barrett, 74; and Barrett's wife, June, 68; as the three arrived at the Ladies Center abortion clinic on July 29.
He was convicted of attempted murder for wounding June Barrett.
Last month, he became the first person convicted of violating the new federal law against harassing or using violence against people entering abortion clinics. He will be sentenced for that crime Dec. 9.
Before the shootings, Hill had openly advocated killing abortion doctors. He said such slayings were divinely sanctioned.
"Now is the time to defend the unborn, the same way you'd defend slaves about to be murdered!" he shouted as he was taken to jail after his arrest.
One of his supporters, Louisville attorney Vincent F. Heuser Jr., said Hill still believes he acted correctly.
"I don't know that he is so-called ready to die, but I think he is at peace with what he's accused of and what he now stands convicted of," Heuser said. "I think he believes it was the right thing to do."
Leaders of the National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority, who closely followed the
trial, said Hill shouldn't be executed. Instead, they called on the govern ment to do more to round up anti- abortion terrorists.
"Paul Hill is only one actor in this very bad play," said NOW President Patricia Ireland, who attended the trial.
"Until we get the entire national network of terrorists who are going after the clinics, going after the doctors, going after all of us who they deem to be accessories, none of us can feel safe," she said.
During their closing arguments, prosecutors showed jurors photos of the victims' bloody, bullet-riddled bodies.
"He demonstrated in the most graphic, violent kind of way that he does not believe that he is bound by any laws that he doesn't agree with," said Assistant State Attorney James Murray. "And what he decided to do was be a vigilante. He decided he was going to be judge, jury and executicer."
At one point, Murray held up a poster-sized photograph of a sign Hill had carried during abortion protests that read: "EXECUTE MURDERERS, ABORTIONISTS, ACCESSORIES?"
"What's that message?" he asked jurors. "Execute. Execute."
Some anti-abortion activists blasted the judge for refusing to let Hill argue that his actions were justifiable.
"By denying him the right to even mention 'abortion' or his only defense—justifiable homicide—the judge sent a very clear message to the jury: This was to be a show trial in a kangaroo court," said Don Treshman, national director of the anti-abortion group Rescue America.
The Ladies Center clinic had been bombed twice in 1984 and vandalized in 1986 as this Florida Panhandle city became a focus for abortion opponents.
David Gunn was shot to death in 1993 at another Pensacola clinic in the nation's first slaying during an abortion protest. Michael Frederick Griffin, 31, is serving life in prison for the killing.
Earlier yesterday, June Barrett provided the trial's most gripping testimony as she sobbed and explained how Hill fired on her and the others repeatedly as they pulled into the clinic parking lot.
Lead turns out futile in search for missing boys
The Associated Press
UNION, S.C.—What had appeared to be a key break in the case of two boys missing for eight days evaporated yesterday, leaving the parents again pleading for their sons' safe return and police at a dead end.
Susan V. Smith told authorities Oct. 25 that a man had commanded her car, forced her to drive about five miles, then ordered her out and left with her sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex, still strapped in their safety seats.
Yesterday morning, Seattle authorities reported that a boy found there bore a striking resemblance to the description of Alex. A man driving a car with South Carolina license plates had left the boy at a motel and asked a clerk to look after him. But the boy turned out to be someone else.
"This investigation basically has been at square one since the first day," Sheriff Howard Wells said after the false alarm. "It doesn't lead me to believe the case is not going to be solved."
The Seattle boy's parents were from South Carolina. But the mother had lived in the Seattle area for some time, and the father apparently was staying at the motel while visiting the woman and their son, said Seattle police representative Sean O'Donnell. It was not clear where the two had gone while the boy was at the motel.
Later, Smith again appealed for her sons' return.
"I would like to say to whoever "i have my children that they please, please bring them back home," she said, tearfully.
The Associated Press
Plane crash cause still unknown Wind shear and ice are possible factors dropped off radar screens a few minutes later an irn Indiana farm filed Passenger fatalities of U.S.
ROSELAWN, Ind. — Whatever happened to make American Eagle Flight 4184 plunge from the sky apparently happened too fast for the pilots to call for help.
"There was no distress signal sent from the plane and no indication from the conversation between the tower and the aircraft that the aircraft was in any trouble." Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said yesterday.
NBC News, however, reported that the cockpit voice recorder indicates that alarm after alarm suddenly went off signaling an emergency on Monday's flight.
Hall said information from the cockpit voice and flight recorders would be released today.
The last thing that air traffic controllers heard from the pilot was thank you after he was told to remain in a holding pattern at 8,000 feet for 10 minutes. The plane had been in a holding pattern at 10,000 feet for 32 minutes.
The twin-engine ATR-72, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago,
The plane disintegrated into tiny pieces, except for a 6- to 8-foot piece of the tail. The severity of the crash is making identification of victims difficult.
"If we found a thumb, even a thumb, that's at least something to start with." said FBI agent Wayne Alford.
Investigators brought the first remains of victims to a temporary morgue set up at a National Guard armory, said Newton County Coroner David Dennis. Remains believed to be those of one the pilots were found, searchers said.
Speculation on what caused the crash focused on high wind and advisories from controllers about turbulence andicing. But the advisories are not unusual, said Mitch Grundman, a pilot for 30 years and chief flight instructor for Purdue University.
Meteorologist Allan Morrison of the National Weather Service in Joliet, Ill., said that wind shear - sudden changes in wind speed and direction were reported at the time of the crash.
Winds were about 45 mph and shifting in opposite directions at altitudes around 5,000 to 7,000 feet. Any planes
Passenger fatalities
On-board fatalities of U.S.
air carriers, 1978-1993
Simpson jury may be selected by December
NOTE: 1994 statistics unavailable
SOURCE: National Transportation Safety
Board; research by BRENNA SINK
Knight-Ridder Tribune
flying at those altitudes between the shifting winds probably encountered heavy turbulence, he said.
Morrison said that the turbulence would put some stress on the aircraft, but he didn't know if it would have been enough to cause the crash.
Grundman said that turbulence from a wind shear is like driving down a pile of railroad ties at a fast speed in a car that doesn't have shock absorbers.
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — O.J. Simpson is no 'Jekyll and Hyde' personality, his attorneys told potential jurors yesterday, while a prosecutor implored panelists to resist Simpson's famous image and ignore the odd-ball theories about other killers.
The comments, sounding more like opening statements than a session on jury selection, set the stage for peremptory challenges, which allow either side to excuse up to 20 prospective jurors without stating a
cause
Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark discussed the image of the actor and former football star. Clark acknowledged that she laughed when she saw Simpson in a "Naked Gun" movie. But she urged prospective jurors to ignore his popularity and focus on evidence.
Simpson is "such a famous guy, there's going to be a real pull to do something different than the law requires," she said.
Superior Court Judge Lance Ito said he now wants 12 jurors and 15 alternate for the trial, and he indicated it will take until Dec. 1 to seat a full panel. Questioning of a second pool of about 100 people is to begin Tuesday.
Of the 42 prospects who had passed the first in-depth round of questioning, two were dismissed yesterday. One admitted he had seen a news report on a controversial book about Simpson's slain ex-wife. The other said she believed Simpson must prove his innocence, though the judge and attorneys said that wasn't correct.
Health care reforms to return in '95 without Hillary Clinton
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—Plotting amore modest course on health care, President Clinton no longer wants his wife and her polarizing alde Ira Magaziner to be coordinators of his reform strategy.
Two lesser-known aides, Domestic Policy Adviser Carol Rasco and Robert E. Rubin, the head of the National Economic Council, will head the administration's second attempt at health care reform, White House officials said yesterday.
Rasco and Rubin will work within the normal White House operation, ales said, which is a stark contrast to the previous health care effort that operated in many ways autonomous of the rest of the White House.
Aides expect the swap to improve coordination and organization of the health care effort and said it may offer some political cover from Hillary Clinton's critics.
They said she recommended the change, feeling that the health care debate has moved to another stage.
While touring the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York yesterday, she said the administration was still committed "to do all we can to make changes in the health care system.
"I don't think there's any reason to be anything but hopeful that eventually we will make the kind of changes that people consistently say they want." she said.
The first lady will likely continue to be a major force in the development of the administration's health care policy, if only not as visible as before.
"She will play a vital part in health care policy and strategy, just as she always has," the first lady's representative, Lisa Caputo, said. "She'll continue to be the public advocate."
Rasco said that Magaziner also would still be part of the effort but that the mounds of research and number-crunching done by the so-called working groups that he supervised did not need to be duplicated in 1995.
"Because there wasn't a massive amount of background work to be done, we thought it was time to move it through the normal policymaking process," Rasco said. "There wasn't a need to have that large group of people working separate from the White House."
Although any decisions on the 1995 health care package will wait until after the midterm elections, aides said, the staffing change signals that Clinton realizes any reforms will be modest.
U.S. government temporarily stopped from sending Haitian refugees back
The Associated Press
U. S. District Judge C. Clyde Atkins issued a temporary order after allowing advocates for the Haitians to join a lawsuit by lawyers seeking access to thousands of Cubans held at Guantanamo and in Panama.
MIAMI — A judge blocked the U.S. government yesterday from returning 14 Haitian refugees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, saying the decision to go home may not be voluntary.
"In general the goal of the United States seems to be remove the Haitians — whether they wish to return to Haiti or not — from Guantanamo," said Steve Forrester, an attorney for the Haitian Refugee Center.
Atkins ordered a halt to the return of Cubans until they are given the chance to meet with attorneys.
Nearly 24,000 Cubans are being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, and more than 8,000 are in Panama.
The attorneys for the Cubans and the Haitians argued the refugees could not make an informed decision to volunteer to return to their homelands without the advice of counsel.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dexter Lee wouldn't comment on the Haitian order other than to say the government was considering an appeal.
The Justice Department has already appealed the judge's order on the Cubans. Atkins did not rule yesterday on a request by the government to stay his order pending the appeal.
The latest order does not apply to 40 other Haitians at the camp who had volunteered to return to Haiti for medical treatment and who were scheduled to return today.
The Associated Press
Strike leaves readers without news
tract for a year.
SAN FRANCISCO — Empty newsstands and bare door greeteds greeted readers yesterday after 2,600 employees of the city's two major dailies struck for the first time in 26 years.
Tuesday's walkout down distribution of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner, managers said. The two newspapers have a combined weekday circulation of about 600,000.
No new talks between the newspapers' eight unions and the San Francisco Newspaper Agency were scheduled after negotiations collapsed Tuesday night. The unions have been working without a con-
The strike was tense on the first day. Five delivery trucks and up to 30 employee cars were damaged, said James Hale, president of the San Francisco Newspaper Agency, which handles advertising and distribution of the papers under a joint operating agreement.
Two union members were arrested outside a Chronicle printing plant for trespassing and vandalism after car windows were smashed, police said.
The morning Chronicle was distributed in a few outlying areas yesterday, Hale said. The afternoon Examiner was run off the press, but it wasn't clear how it would be distributed, he said.
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