Federal pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges against Darrell Rice short­ly before he was to face cap­i­tal charges for two mur­ders in Shenandoah National Park. New foren­sic evi­dence cast doubt on the case against Rice, despite the fact that Attorney General John Ashcroft had made a pub­lic announce­ment of Rice’s indict­ment employ­ing a new law in 2002. (Washington Post, Feb. 7, 2004).
  • A fed­er­al judge threw out a jury’s (July 2003) ver­dict of guilt in the cap­i­tal case of Jay Lentz, accused of mur­der­ing his wife. Lentz has been grant­ed a new tri­al and the judge’s rul­ing accused the pros­e­cu­tors of delib­er­ate­ly and reck­less­ly plac­ing improp­er evi­dence before the jury. The pros­e­cu­tors are appeal­ing the judge’s rul­ing. (Washington Post, Feb. 7, 2004).
  • On the grounds that his fed­er­al indict­ment did not include the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors nec­es­sary to sup­port his exe­cu­tion, the Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit reduced Billie Jerome Allen’s death sen­tence to life in prison in February 2004. Allen was sen­tenced to death by a jury on in 1998 fol­low­ing his con­vic­tion for mur­der in the course of a bank rob­bery. In June 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court vacat­ed Allen’s death sen­tence and remand­ed the case back to the Eighth Circuit for recon­sid­er­a­tion in light of the Court’s rul­ing in Ring v. Arizona. (February 5, 2004, St Louis Post Dispatch).
  • Gary Sampson plead­ed guilty to the car­jack­ing and mur­der of two Massachusetts men. A jury returned a death ver­dict for Sampson on December 23, 2003. U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf for­mal­ly sen­tenced Sampson to death, but ordered that the exe­cu­tion be car­ried out in New Hampshire, which has not held an exe­cu­tion since 1939. (Boston Globe, January 30, 2004).
  • The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has set June 8 as the exe­cu­tion date for David Paul Hammer. Hammer plead­ed guilty in 1998 to the mur­der of his prison cell­mate in 1996. He has vac­il­lat­ed back and forth about waiv­ing his appeals and this is his third exe­cu­tion date. (Terre Haute Tribune Star, Feb. 12, 2004).
See Federal Death Penalty.
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