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| Terre Haute Welcomes New Prison |
| By Indianapolis Star |
| Published: 02/10/2003 |
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As officials at the nation's Death Row prepare for the third federal execution in 40 years, local residents are embracing a new prison -- expected to be completed next year -- that will double the number of inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary. The new facility, south of the existing one, will create 300 jobs and is expected to house 960 high-security inmates. And, although the Bureau of Prisons has no additional expansion plans, local officials already have asked for a third prison. 'There is such a win-win relationship,' said Rod Henry, president of the Greater Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce. 'There's a lot of federal jobs. Those jobs equate into loaves of bread and cars and homes being purchased, and gallons of milk and donations to church or United Way.' Henry said he's not concerned that the scheduled execution of Louis Jones Jr. on March 18 will cause any disruptions. Prison officials have put some new rules in place, such as reducing the time allowed for demonstrations to three hours before the execution, spokesman Jim Cross said Wednesday. But there will be little difference between Jones' execution and those of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Texas drug lord Juan Raul Garza in June 2001.Jones, 52, was the first person in the nation condemned under a 1994 law that extended the death penalty to more than 40 federal crimes. In 1995, Jones kidnapped 19-year-old Pvt. Tracie McBride at gunpoint from Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. He sexually assaulted and bludgeoned her to death. Jones has exhausted all legal appeals. His attorney filed a clemency petition Dec. 30, asking President Bush to commute the sentence to life without parole. The petition included new medical evidence that Jones suffered brain damage from continued exposure to toxins in the Persian Gulf War. According to the petition, Jones' unit moved into areas exposed to fallout from sarin nerve gas after Iraqi weapons stores were bombed. Dr. Robert W. Haley, an expert on Gulf War diseases and director of the Southwestern Medical Center at the University of Texas, reviewed Jones' medical records and found that his symptoms pointed to 'the most severe form of Gulf War syndrome.' Gulf War syndrome refers to a range of unexplained illnesses reported by some veterans. High-profile cases involving Gulf War veterans include accused sniper John Allen Muhammad and three veterans who allegedly killed their wives at Fort Bragg, N.C., last year. Jones, a 22-year Army Ranger veteran, returned from the war with a noticeable change in personality, becoming more irritable and hostile, Haley said. Fixated on his ex-wife, Jones drove to the base one evening in February 1995 to look for her. Instead, he found McBride. His defense attorneys argues that he suffered from the syndrome, but the jury disagreed. 'The federal government is poised to execute this one who clearly suffers from this service-related ailment, which likely played a role in his criminal act,' Texas minister Rev. J. Jason Fry wrote in a letter supporting clemency for Jones. 'At the very same time the same government is sending other men and women into harm's way, to the same region to defend our country, as Louis Jones has done.' The victim's relatives in Minnesota are pleading for the execution to go forward. |
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