The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 29, 1984 - Page 5
Women could soon join
execution list, expert says
From the Associated Press
Elizabeth Ann Duncan, 58, who so
loved her son, Frank, that she hired two
laborers to kill her daughter-in-law,
was the last woman legally executed in
the United States.
She died in a California gas chamber
Aug.8, 1962.
ALMOST 22 years later, 14 women in
nine states await execution. The two
youngest are 19, the oldest 54.
Since a 1976 ruling by the U.S.
Supreme Court that effectively ended a
10-year moratorium on executions in
this country, 15 men have been put to
death. With the pace of executions
steadily rising - one in 1977, two in
1979, one in 1981, two in 1982, five in 1983
and four id the first three months of this
year - some capital punishment exper-
ts say a woman could soon join the list.
"It's very, very likely for a woman to
be executed," Watt Espy of the Capital
Punishment Research Project at the
University of Alabama Law Center said
in an interview.
"THE SUPREME COURT is in-
sisting that it be applied in an equitable
fashion," he said. "Some of these
women have been on death row for a
long time and their appeals are going to
run out. Alabama has not hesitated to
execute women in the past."
Dr. Coramae Richey Mann, a
professor of criminology at Florida
State University, disagreed.
"There are a lot of things Americans
can take, but I just don't think they
could take seeing a woman hanged,"
Ms. Mann said.
"EVEN THOUGH judges and the
whole criminal justice system are get-
ting more punitive toward women, I
just don't think the public could stand
seeing a woman strapped into an elec-
tric chair or hung or standing before a
firing squad," she said.
Since 1608, there have been 12,264
legal executions in the United States,
Espy said, including 286 women. From
1930 to 1962, 30 women were put to death
for committing murders, one for kid-
napping and one for espionage.
The earliest recorded execution of a
woman in America was Jane Champion
in the Virginia colony in 1632
"IN THE COLONIAL period, they
didn't know what women's rights
were, 'Espy said. "A woman who was
an accomplice in the murder of her
husband was considered to be commit-
ting treason, so she was executed. If a
slave murdered her master, she was
also guilty of treason and put to death."
By the Victorian age; Espy said,
"men had adopted a far more protec-
tive attitude toward women."
AP Photo
Ouff track
Heavy rains washed out a Southern Railway System bridge causing an engine and 18 tank cars to derail early yesterday
morning, with no injuries reported.
Farmowners denied new trial
"We've always executed women, but
few indeed relative to men and the
number of homicides women commit,"
said Henry Schwarzschild, director of
the Capital Punishmen Project of the
American Civil Liberties Union.
As of March 1, he said, 1,312 inmates
were waiting on death row. Only 14
were women. Of the 18,511 arrests for
murder in 1982, according to the FBI's
Uniform Crime Reports, 16,052 were
men and 2,459 women.
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By CAROLINE MULLER
A Chelsea farm couple convicted of
enslaving two mentally handicapped
farmhands has lost their bid for a new
trial.
Ike and Margarethe Kozminski were
convicted in Ann Arbor Feb. 10 of two
counts of involuntary servitude and one
count of conspiracy to violate the far-
mhands' civil rights, in the state's first
slavery trial in 60 years.
Tuesday, U.S. Federal Court Judge
Charles Joiner denied motions by their at-
torneys for a new trial.
One of Barris' objections to the trial,
was testimony by witnesses that the
two farmhands - Robert Fulmer and
Louis Molitoris - had been kept in a
trailer without heat or bathing
facilities. Barris contended that Judge
Charles should not have allowed the
testimony because it was irrelevant to
the charges against the Kozminskis.
Barris also objected to the fact that
Joiner had allowed psychiatrist Harley
Stock to testify against the couple.
Stock had testified that the farmhands
were suffering from a "captivity syn-
drome" because the Kozminskis had
broken their will. Barris argued that
the testimony should not have been
allowed because Stock hadn't talked to
the Kozminskis before drawing his con-
clusions.
John Kozminski, 30, the couple's son,
was also convicted in February of a
charge of conspiracy to violate the
farmhands' rights, but acquitted of the
involuntary servitude charge. His Mar-
ch 13 appeal for an aquittal had been
delayed pending a decision on his
parents' case.
338 S. State St.
996-9191
d'
V40 \ a
MIXED DRINKS
Senate finds facts on Meese income
Nights
FABULOUS FRIDAYS
Happy Hour 2 - 7
Free Pizza & Pasta
WASHINGTON (UPI) - President
Reagan praised Edwin Meese for his
"great economic sacrifices" in joining
the administration, but tax returns
show Meese and his wife have reaped
their biggest income since moving to
Washington, sources said yesterday.
Ursula Meese, wife of the attorney
general-nominee, produced most of the
financial boom by landing a $40,000-a-
year job as head of the William Moss
Institute, a non-profit center founded by
a wealthy Republican oilman desiring
more research into America's future.
Based on their joint federal income
tax return, Meese and his wife earned
pre-tax income of $115,762 in 1982, sour-
ces close to a Senate investigation of
Meese's finances said. Meese's salary
PSN say s
laboratory
sit-ins
necessary
(Continued from Page 1)
toid. "That line of reasoning would say
black people in the south should have
just stayed in their place," he said.'
Since the sit-in, some of the homes of
PSN members have been vandalized,
and some of the members agreed that
the defense research issue is polarizing
the campus.
Marx, who recently spoke to the
Engineering Council which was con-
sidering drafting a letter condeming
the demonstrations, said "there was
definitely some antagonism" from the,
group, but said they seemed more sym-
pathetic when he talked in the hall'for
an hour-and-a-half afterwards.
as presidential counselor that year was
$60,653.
The Meeses had an average income
of $70,731 in the six years before he
came to Washington in late 1980 to
oversee Reagan's transition to the Oval
Office, the sources said. During those
years, their highest income was in 1980,
when they reported $91,431, including
what Meese rountinely lopped together
on his tax return as law pratice, legal
services and consulting work.
Meese listed on his 1981 financial
disclosure statement at least $15,000 in
1980 income from activities related to
Reagan's campaign and transition to
office.
Mrs. Meese, who did not work
fulltime before moving to Washington,
has said in newspaper interviews her
husband's salary as a lawyer and
University of San Diego instructor was
halved when he joined the ad-
ministration.
Meese's confirmation as attorney
general has been stalled by a flurry of
questions about his finances, including
acceptance of several loans to tide him
over during financial hardships stem-
ming from his purchase of a $300,000
home in suburban Washington before
selling his California home.
Several people who aided Meese
financially later got jobs in the ad-
ministration.
The Writers-In-Residence Program at the
Residential College presents a reading by
RICHARD E. McMULLEN
POET!
Author of Chicken Beacon and
Trying To Get Out
8:00 P.M., TUESDAY, APRIL 3
Benzinger Library / East Quad
(East University between Hill and Willard)
A RECEPTION FOR MR. McMULLEN
WILL FOLLOW THE READING
The PublicIs Cordially Invited
The Writers-In-Residence Program
is made possible, in party, by a grant
from the National Endowment for the A rts
Poor roads lead
tocostly vehicle."
repais... We need
good roads.. .
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a.N..
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ROADS TO BE IMPROVED
For better Ann Arbor
streets vote yes April 2
on the 1 mill Street
- m. . U
COMMUNITY
SERVICES
The University of Michigan
Minority Student Services
HISPANIC SYMPOSIUM:
GRASS ROOTS MOVEMENTS: ORGANIZING FOR
SOCIAL CHANGE IN HISPANIC COMMUNITIES
" Thursday, March 29, 7 pm, SCHORLING AUD., School of Education
Dolores Huerta speaks for United Farm Workers