Figures Show Attorney General Often Overrules U.S. Attorneys' Arguments Against Capital Charges
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 28, 2007; Page A07
Paul K. Charlton, one of nine U.S. attorneys fired last year, told members of Congress yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has been overzealous in ordering federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, including in an Arizona murder case in which no body had been recovered.
Justice Department officials had branded Charlton, the former U.S. attorney in Phoenix, disloyal because he opposed the death penalty in that case. But Charlton testified yesterday that Gonzales has been so eager to expand the use of capital punishment that the attorney general has been inattentive to the quality of evidence in some cases -- or the views of the prosecutors most familiar with them. ~snip~
Justice Department data presented at the hearing demonstrated that the administration's death penalty dispute with Charlton was not unique. The Bush administration has so far overruled prosecutors' recommendations against its use more frequently than the Clinton administration did. The pace of overrulings picked up under Gonzales's predecessor, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, and spiked in 2006, when the number of times Gonzales ordered prosecutors to seek the death penalty against their advice jumped to 21, from three in 2005. ~snip~
.... Charlton .... believed .... the body was .. buried in a landfill and .. asked Justice Department officials to pay .. for its exhumation. The department refused ... And without such evidence, he testified, the risk of putting the wrong person to death was too high .... He instead received a letter .... from Gonzales, simply directing him to seek the death penalty. ~snip~
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