SPORTS: Former Kansas forward Danny Manning is traded to the Atlanta Hawks for Dominique Wilkins. Page 9.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
VOL.103,NO.109
KANSAS STATE
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
TOPEKA KS 66612
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
FRIDAY. FEBRUARY, 25, 1994
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS:864-4810
Committee passes death penalty bill
Amended version makes it to Senate
By Stephen Martino Kansan staff writer
A narrow death penalty bill passed a narrowly divided Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.
The committee voted 7-6 to forward the bill to the entire Senate. Debate is expected to be taken up sometime next week, perhaps as early as Tuesday or Wednesday.
State Sen. Dick Rock, D-Arkansas City, proposed an amendment that limited application of the death penalty to seven specific occurrences
They are:
n premeditated killing during a kidnapping, if the kidnapping was intended to hold the person for ransom.
n killing a person for money, covering contract murders.
n murder of an innate or guard if the murderer is an innate.
n intentional murder of a person during a rape, sodomy or aggravated sodomy.
n murder of a law enforcement officer.
n murdering more than one person as part of the same act.
n murder of a child under the age of 12 during kidnapping if the kidnapping was done to commit a sexual offense against the child.
Rock said that he favored this limited application over one that was inclusive of all first-degree murder.
"There are too many circumstances that can result in bias," he said.
However, State Sen. Dick Bond, R-Roverland Park, said the bill passed by the committee had serious flaws and questionable logic.
"It applies the death penalty if you kill two persons in one act but not if you kill one person a week," he said. "You can execute someone if they kill a 12-year-old but not a 13-year-old."
Death by imprisonment, Bond said, would be his preferred way of handling violent criminals. He made that motion in the committee, but it failed by one vote.
Bond said that death by imprisonment would prevent two possible problems that could come out of the capital punishment.
Mistakes from death, he said, are irreversible.
"If you make a mistake, how do you compensate victims," he said. "And if you say that there will be no mistakes, that is to say government runs perfectly, even in delivering the mail."
Bond said that discrimination, and not just racial discrimination, is inherent in the death penalty. He said that the death penalty was applied more to African Americans who committed crimes against whites than vice versa and that wealthy persons could hire better attorneys to get them out of the death penalty than poorer persons who generally had to rely on court-appointed counsel.
The bill that passed the committee is not the one that the House passed two weeks ago by a vote of 70-55. So if the Senate passes the legislation, it will have to go to the House floor to be debated. The House either can pass the bill as it is, kill it or make changes and have the bill discussed by a House/Senate conference committee.
Bond said that he would introduce his death by imprisonment amendment on the floor of the Senate. He said the Senate may look more favorably on it than the judiciary committee did.
That measure was voted on by the House and failed 61-63. However, the composition of the House will have changed before another vote will be taken.
State Rep. Rand Rock, D-Akansas市 and son of Sen. Dick Rock, resigns from the House today. He was appointed by President Clinton to a federal marshal's position.
State Rep. Tom Sawyer, the House Democratic leader from Wichita, said that Rock's replacement, Joe Shriver, was a death penalty opponent and presumably would support a death by imprisonment motion if it came before the House.
"That will leave us only one vote short," Sawyer said. "I'm hopeful it might have a chance."
The Associated Press contributed Information to this story.
Lower cable rates not expected
Sunflower charges historically lower
By Stephen Martino Kansan staff writer
A representative of Sunflower Cablevision said he did not expect lower bills for subscribers as a result of a rate decrease ordered by the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC announced a 7 percent rate decrease Tuesday, just 10 months after it ordered a 10 percent rate decrease. That decrease backfired on some customers, causing actual increases in their bills.
The proposed action by the FCC is anticipated to effect about 90 percent
of cable television customers.
Dennis Knipper, general manager of Sunflower, said that he was not sure a rate decrease would occur because Sunflower's rates historically had been low.
"We have been below the previous benchmark rates, so it's too early to tell if rates will be cut," he said.
Sunflower has about 20,000 customers, who are charged a basic $18.50 rate plus tax and fees.
The rate cut should go into effect sometime in May, but the impact on bills was not immediately known.
Knipfer said that Sunflower would make a decision on rate cuts sometime in the next three to four weeks. When the FCC made its first cut 10 months ago, Knipfer said, Sunflower customers did not see lower bills.
The rate cut ordered by the FCC affects basic cable programming, such as the Cable News Network, MTV and ESPN. It has no effect on premium stations, such Home Box Office and Showtime.
The FCC suggests about 57 cents per channel in charges to the consumer, Knipfer said. He said that the rate cuts would have no effect on service to the consumers.
However, the manager of Topeka's primary cable provider said that the action taken by the FCC was extremely damaging to the long-term security of the cable television industry.
"I think the FCC overreacted to cable television due to pressure from the White House, i.e. Al Gore and President Clinton," said Todd Cruthild, area manager for Telecommunications Inc. of Kansas.
Cruthird said that damaging the cable television industry would prevent full utilization of the information highway, a proposal strongly endorsed by the Clinton Administration.
The first effect of the rate increase already has been seen, Cruthird said. The proposed merger between Telecommunications Inc., TCI of Kansas' parent company, and Bell Atlantic has fallen apart. Telecommunications Inc. said it no longer could afford the proposed merger because its revenues were lower because of the rate reduction.
"In the cable industry, we buy wholesale and sell retail," he said. "Our wholesale prices aren't going down any."
Martin Altstaedten / KANSAN
Holy video Batman!
Dodge City senior, dressed up as Batman for a music video that he and a classmate taped for a theater and film class yesterday morning.
Accident spurs changes in chemical disposal
Rv Ashlev Schultz
Kansan staff writer
An incident on Feb. 11 that put two city sanitation workers in the hospital has resulted in changes in how hazardous waste is disposed of at Malott Hall.
The workers were overcome by vapors from a substance placed in a Malott dumpster that later was compacted by the workers in a trash truck. The substance — suspected to be a compound called thionyl chloride — should not have been placed in the trash, said John Landgrebe, professor of chemistry and chair of the department's chemical hygiene and safety committee.
After the incident, the city's sanitation department contacted the department of facilities operations about alternative collection methods, said Mike Russell, KU's environmental health and safety officer.
A "roll-off box" at Malott's main loading dock has replaced the dumpsters, Russell said. The box is about the size of five dumpsters and is picked up by a truck capable of carrying it away.
"They decided that it might be in the best interest of the sanitation people not to compact the trash because, when you do that, if there are any chemicals in there and they get compacted the bottles can break and release stuff," he said.
Hydrochloric acid and sulfur dioxide vapors were formed when the compound came in contact with moisture generated by compacting the trash. The fumes dissipated quickly after hitting the workers, who were treated at a hospital and
released the same day.
Russell said that the fumes irritated the respiratory system
"It kind of burns your lungs and respiratory tract, so its very hard to get your breath." he said.
"Then the city would come in with their trucks, and they would pick up the dumpsters, whichdump all of the material out of the dumpster into the trash truck," he said.
Custodians collect garbage out of the offices and laboratories in Malot and deposit it in dumsters, Russell said.
Then the ducks complied. Landgrebe said reports that a student or faculty member was responsible for the incident were untrue.
A custodial supervisor received a letter from a staff member who claimed responsibility for putting the box of chemicals in the dumpster, Landgrebe said.
"It was a human error, one of those things that happens," he said.
Landgrebe said that the box of lab waste was properly labeled and that the Office of Research Health and Safety had been called to dispose of it.
"They followed every procedure to the letter," he said.
Russell said that incidents like this could be expected about once a year, especially with the types of operations that occur at Malott.
"Our problem is we can't stand there watching dumpsters 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. "And I'll be honest with you. From time to time things slip through the system."
Dumping hazardous waste
Suspected hazardous waste material should be reported to the Health and Safety at 844-4599. Representatives of the office will review the material.
1 A material evaluation is run to see whether the material is harmful to the environment. It is harmful, it is packaged and labeled.
2 The material is taken to Campus Waste Accumulation Area at Wes Campus, where it is stored for a maximum of 90 days.
Chemical Waste company contracted by the state, transports the waste to a facility in Illinois so it can be recycled.
Source: Office of Research Health and Safety Micah Lasker/KANSAN
Micah Laaker/KANSAN
A Rich History
The Engineering Expo has been a KU tradition since 1911 and will continue today at Learned Hall. Page 6.
Roundups rattle activists, harm snakes and humans
By Jason Wolf
Special to the Kansan
The three rattlesnakes in attendance at the Students for WildCare meeting Wednesday night in Haworth Hall showed their respect for speaker David Reber.
Rattlesnake roundups are inhumane events, posing harm to rattlesnakes, humans and the environment, said Reber, Lawrence graduate student and president of the Kansas Herpetological Society, a nonprofit organization that encourages education and preservation of wildlife.
Although the snakes rattled their tails at the beginning and end of the speech, they kept quiet under the cover of a large beach towel as Reber explained the other side of ratlesse roundups.
Doug Hesse / KANSAN
Reber was the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of Students for WildCare, a KU organization which assists WildCare. WildCare is a private, nonprofit organization that focuses on nursing wild animals back to health and returning them to their natural habitats.
David Reber, Lawrence graduate student, handles a prairie king snake, a snake that is common throughout most of the state. Reber talked to a group of 20 people Wednesday night about endangered rattlesnakes in Kansas.
Reber told the 20 people at the meeting that rattlesnakes at roundups were burned alive, had their fangs extracted and were excessively stretched to reach prize-winning lengths.
Participants in these roundups frequently spray gasoline down holes and cracks in the ground to drive the rattlesnakes from their dens. The gasoline can harm and even kill innocent wildlife living in these hunting grounds, Reber said.
The gasoline-contaminated meat from these rattlesnakes sometimes is sold to people, he said. People also
can become ill if the gasoline leaks into ground water used as drinking water in some rural areas.
Allowing the general public to touch the captured rattlesnakes is another danger that roundups present to humans. Reber said.
Supporters of the roundups garner public support by casting rattlesnakes in their natural habitat as a great danger to the public, Reber said. The supporters exaggerate to the public the risks of bites despite the fact that there have been no reported deaths attributed to rattlesnake bites in Kansas in more than 50 years, Reber said.
He said that the numbers in some rattlesnake dens have declined in recent years and that "any species, no matter how prolific, can become extinct."
Reber said that some types of rattlesnakes were not yet on the endangered species list but that they were candidates on the list for threatened species.
Reber advised concerned individuals to stay informed and to voice their complaints to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks as well as to their state representatives.
Amy Barnes, vice president of Students for WildCare, said that the members were opposed to rattlesnake roundups because of their inhumane treatment of the animals.
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"I can't believe something so cruel still goes on," she said.
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