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| Federal Execution Nears for Gulf War Vet |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 03/17/2003 |
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With another war with Iraq looming, the federal government is poised to execute a decorated Gulf War veteran who claims severe brain damage from his exposure to Iraqi nerve gas led him to kill. Unless President Bush or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, Louis Jones Jr. will be executed by lethal injection Tuesday at the U.S. Penitentiary near Terre Haute, Ind. Jones, 53, admitted kidnapping 19-year-old Pvt. Tracie Joy McBride from a Texas Air Force base, raping her and beating her to death with a tire iron. But Jones has asked the president to commute his death sentence to life without parole, citing what he says is evidence he suffered severe, personality-altering brain damage from exposure to sarin nerve gas in March 1991, after the Gulf War ended. Jones' attorney, Timothy Floyd, said his client's exposure to the gas, decorated military career and lack of a prior criminal record make him different from the 23 other inmates on federal death row. He said severe brain damage from the nerve gas made him prone to violent outbursts. 'Compared with his whole life story up to that point, it's inexplicable that somebody like him could do something as horrible as he did,' said Floyd, a law professor at Texas Tech University. 'It's sort of a mystery, but the answer to it is what happened to him over there in Iraq.' In addition to seeking executive clemency for Jones, Floyd has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution, claiming the federal death penalty is unconstitutional under a June 2002 court ruling. Jones would be the third person - after Timothy McVeigh and drug kingpin Juan Garza - put to death by the federal government since 1963. He would also be the second Gulf War veteran, after McVeigh, who faced a federal execution. Federal prosecutors oppose Jones' clemency request, pointing to evidence of his aggressive behavior before the Gulf War, including four incidents in which he beat up co-workers or fellow soldiers. He killed McBride on Feb. 18, 1995, two years after his honorable discharge from the Army. McBride's father thinks the gas-exposure argument is ridiculous. Jones alone is to blame for his daughter's killing, he said. 'There were several thousand troops in the same war, and I have yet to hear of any one of them coming home, kidnapping, raping and violently murdering a young lady,' said Jim McBride of Centerville, Minn. |
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