Thursday, November 4, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 7
Jury convicts man of Shepard's murder
The Associated Press
LARAMIE, Wyo. — A drug-dealing roofer was convicted yesterday of murder in the beating of a gay college student, making him eligible for the death sentence for a slaying so brutal it spurred calls for hate-crime laws around the nation.
In addition to felony murder, Aaron McKinney was convicted of second degree murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping in the death of Matthew Shepard. The jury of seven men and five women returned the verdicts after about 10 hours of deliberation. The jurors, however, rejected a first-degree murder charge that McKinney had planned the attack.
The sentencing phase, where the jurors will consider the death penalty, is to begin today.
As the jury prepared to announce its verdict, McKinney, 22, stood next to his two attorneys, looking impassive, arms crossed in front of him. When the first verdict was read — guilty of kidnapping — his arms dropped to his sides. His father, William, looked straight ahead with no emotion.
Shepard, 21, a University of Wyoming freshman majoring in political science, met McKinney and Russell Henderson at a Laramie bar on Oct. 6, 1998.
Prosecuters said McKinney and Henderson lured Shepard from the bar and drove him to a remote spot on the prairie, where they tied him to a wooden rail fence, robbed him of $20 and pistol-whipped him into a coma.
Eighteen hours later, Shepard, bruised and bleeding, was found still lashed to the fence. He died five days
later at a Fort Collins, Colo., hospital without regaining consciousness.
Authorities said robbery was the primary motive but that Shepard also was singled out because he was gay.
was suspected of kidnapping and murder, and is serving two life sentences.
In closing arguments Tuesday, prosecutor Cal Rerauca paused for 60 seconds to let the jury reflect in silence on the beating inflicted on Shepard.
"Think what 60 seconds was to Matthew Shepard, Rerucha said. It's a short time if you're eating an ice cream cone. It's a long time if you're descending into hell not knowing what fate will meet you there."
Defense attorneyns argued that McKinney, in a drug-induced rage, lost control after Shepard made an unwanted sexual advance.
They were barred from using a "gay panic" strategy, which is based on the theory that a person with latent gay tendencies will have an uncontrollable, violent reaction when propositioned by a homosexual.
District Judge Barton Voigt ruled that the strategy was akin to temporary insanity or a diminished capacity defense — both prohibited under Wyoming law. The ruling essentially let the defense argue the beating was a crime of passion but not present the theory that the passion was caused by a specific mental condition.
In his closing argument, public defender Dion Custis told the jury that McKinney was in an emotional rage.
("He) is not a cold-blooded murderer, ladies and gentlemen, he reacted," Custis said. "There was no thought process."
EgyptAir Flight 990 climbed before crashing
The Associated Press
NEWPORT, R.I. — EgyptAir Flight 990 plunged 17,000 feet and then climbed again, before apparently breaking up in its final dive into the Atlantic, federal investigators said yesterday.
The description by National Transportation Safety Board officials of the final seconds of Sunday's crash that killed 217 people shows that the plane did not go straight down, said John Clark, deputy director of the NTSB's Office of Research and Engineering.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the Boeing 767 was cruising at 33,000 feet a half-hour after leaving New York for Cairo when it suddenly descended 16,300 feet in a straight line within 40 seconds. At the time, the plane had a ground speed of about 600 knots, or about 690 mph.
Then the plane pitched up and climbed
8,000. Clark said he did not know the cause of the climb, and refused to speculate on whether it was a catastrophic event on board or whether the pilots were struggling to control the aircraft.
meanwhile, efforts to retrieve the black boxes and pieces of the aircraft were delayed because of high winds following a storm that were expected to prevent most of the recovery efforts until at least the weekend. Waves peaked yesterday at 22 feet.
Preliminary analysis of the radar data appeared to back up the conclusion that the plane broke up before it hit the ocean, Clark said, but he refused to speculate on what the new information would mean to investigators or to consideration of thrust reversers as a possible suspect in the crash.
The information was provided by the U.S. Air Force after an analysis of radar
tape.
Officials said it was likely that an analysis of the black boxes when they are recovered would tell whether a thrust reverser had been activated in the air, an event that caused a Boeing 767 to crash in Thailand in 1991. The reverser is intended to slow the plane after landing.
"We have no evidence at this time that the thrust reverser system played any role in this accident," James Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said.
A top Egyptian aviation official said the reverseer could not have caused the crash. Even with a reverser malfunction, the pilots still would have had time to radio a distress call, said Isam Ahmed, head of Egypt's Civil Aviation Institute. Still, a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator, Barry Trotter, said yesterday that information released so far leads him to consider the thrust reverser as a possible cause.
The reverser wasn't working on one of Flight 990's two engines and was deactivated sometime before the crash, according to investigators.
Greg Phillips, the NTSB's chief crush investigator, added that investigators have not yet seen the plane's maintenance records — or major pieces of the plane itself.
Except for one Coast Guard cutter, ships involved in the search were recalled to port after a storm moved in Tuesday. Winds continued to gust up to 50 mph around the crash site Wednesday.
"With an airplane in the ocean, it's pretty difficult. The fact that we haven't seen this airplane is the biggest issue," Phillips said.
Group urges changes to U.S. war on drugs in conference letter
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The U.S.-led military-style war on drugs is a failure and should be changed to focus more on ending the demand for drugs and drug money, a group of prominent Americans and Latin Americans said yesterday.
... units involved in human rights abuses," the group said in a letter to delegates to this week's drug strategy conference.
"The escalation of a militarized drug war in Colombia and elsewhere in the Americas threatens regional stability, undermines efforts towards demilitarization and democracy and has put U.S. arms and money into the hands of corrupt officials and military
The 13 signers of the letter included jurists, doctors, artists, religious leaders and three former Latin presidents — Belisario Betancur of Colombia, Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oscar Arias of Costa Rica.
"As you meet to develop hemispheric drug strategy, it is time to admit that after two decades, the U.S. war on drugs — both in Latin American and in the United States — is a failure," the letter said.
States == is a valuable despite spending tens of billions of dollars for raids on drug labs, crop eradication and arrests and imprisonment at home, today in the U.S., illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent and more easily available than two decades ago, it said.
The signers urged officials attending today and tomorrow's drug conference to consider policies that will focus more on reducing consumption, expanding drug treatment programs, and promoting economic development to decrease the reliance on drug income among people who produce it.
Officials said it was unclear whether delegates to the closed-door meetings would speak against the U.S. anti-drug approach because they rely not only on military aid that comes with it, but fear jeopardizing trade and other relationships with the United States.
The White House office for drug policy said it was unaware of the letter to delegates but pointed to a 13 percent drop in drug use among U.S. youths last year.
"What they are protesting is exactly what we have been doing, so we find the protest somewhat disingenuous," said Bob Weiner, representative for Barry McCaffrey, who directs the White House office.
Weiner said the office has increased programs for prevention and treatment.
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