Pubdate: Sun, 12 Nov 2000
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2000 Cox Interactive Media.
Contact: Journal:   Constitution:  http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Forum: http://www.accessatlanta.com/community/forums/
Author: Bill Rankin
Bookmark: cannabis clippings http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm

ALABAMIAN IS NO CRIMELORD, SHOULDN'T DIE, SAY FRIENDS

Defenders insist Ronnie Chandler was a rural drug grower with a soft heart, 
not a ruthless boss who ordered a man killed.

Piedmont, Ala. --- They came to say that Ronnie Chandler is a 
compassionate, charitable man, even though he oversaw a large-scale 
marijuana ring here in the Appalachian foothills.

They also came to proclaim Chandler's innocence in a homicide, although he 
is set to become one of the first federal prisoners put to death since 1963.

And they urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Chandler's appeal, which 
appears to be the last chance, barring a presidential pardon or 
commutation, for him to avoid execution.

"We're here to help the truth come out for a husband, a father and a friend 
who was put on death row by lies and deceit," family friend Debbie McFry 
told a rally Saturday at Fagan's Park in Piedmont. "We want to be heard all 
the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court."

More than 100 people, many wearing "Ronnie Chandler is innocent on death 
row" T-shirts, listened to gospel music and heard speakers call for his 
release.

"He's worth fighting for and worth saving," said Hank Sanders, a state 
senator from Selma. "I know in my heart he's innocent."

Another speaker, Bo Cochran, said he was on Alabama's death row for 19 
years before being exonerated. He said he got to know Chandler while both 
were in state prison and that he remains convinced of Chandler's innocence.

In 1991, David Ronald Chandler became the first man sentenced to death 
under the federal drug kingpin law.

A Birmingham jury found that Chandler hired a triggerman to kill Marlin 
"Marty" Shuler, who was informing police on Chandler's marijuana growing 
and distribution operation.

Chandler now sits on federal death row in Terre Haute, Ind., where he would 
be put to death by lethal injection. But the former contractor's guilt 
remains strongly contested. In interviews with The Atlanta 
Journal-Constitution and in post-trial testimony, the triggerman, Charles 
Ray Jarrell, has said he lied at trial when he pinned the killing on Chandler.

Jarrell, whose cooperation led prosecutors to drop death penalty charges 
against him, says Chandler did not order him to kill Shuler. Instead, 
Jarrell now says, he committed the killing because Shuler was abusing his 
wife and mother-in-law, who are Jarrell's sister and mother.

But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, in a decision issued 
in July, rejected Chandler's innocence claims.

And the Atlanta appeals court also rejected Chandler's claims that his 
lawyer's performance during the sentencing phase of the trial was so 
inadequate a new jury should be allowed to sentence him again.

Before the 1991 trial, Chandler's lawyer failed to look for evidence that 
could have been used in mitigation of capital punishment. And Chander's new 
lawyers have since found dozens of people in the Piedmont area who said 
they would have testified, had they only been contacted, about Chandler's 
uncommon acts of kindness.

These witnesses have said Chandler brought shoes, clothing, firewood and 
groceries to poor families and children, provided jobs to those without 
them, built a fellowship hall for his church and a ramp for a disabled man 
so he could get in and out of his home.

But by a 6-5 majority, the 11th Circuit set an important precedent, saying 
trial lawyer Drew Redden's efforts were good enough. Chandler's appeal to 
the U.S. Supreme Court, filed last month, urges the court to overturn that 
part of the court's decision.

Chandler's new attorney, Jack Martin of Atlanta, called the 11th Circuit's 
ruling "unprecedented and ill-conceived." The decision "perverts the 
reasoning and underlying premises" of an important 1984 high court decision 
that established the test for determining whether ineffective lawyering 
should warrant a new trial, Martin said in his appeal.

By the end of the year, the high court is expected to decide whether to 
hear the appeal.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Thunder