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| Britons Plead for Georgia Inmate's Life |
| By USA Today |
| Published: 03/12/2002 |
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In an unusual move, a member of the British parliament is leading an international delegation to Atlanta to plead for the life of a convicted rapist-murderer who discovered only recently that he is a British citizen. Vera Baird, a Labor Party member and well-known criminal lawyer, says she will ask the Georgia pardons board to commute the death sentence of Tracy Housel, 43, based on his British citizenship, history of abuse as a child and ''irregularities'' during his trial. The jury that sentenced Housel to death in 1987 was permitted to hear evidence that he had committed three other violent crimes, including a murder, even though he had not been charged with those crimes. Housel is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. EST Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear his case. His lawyer says a last-minute appeal is possible. ''We in Britain do not have the death penalty, so my opposition (in Georgia) will be as a matter of principle,'' Baird said. ''Beyond that, though, there are things (about the case) that shock the conscience.'' Baird will be accompanied by representatives of Amnesty International and The Law Society, the professional body for British attorneys. She will also carry a letter from British Prime Minister Tony Blair requesting clemency for Housel. Within the past two weeks, the United Kingdom's foreign secretary and ambassador to the United States have phoned Georgia officials to plead for Housel's life. In Georgia, only the pardons board can commute a death sentence. Housel was born in Bermuda, a British overseas territory, to American parents, and was unaware he could claim dual nationality until after he had been convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of a Georgia mother he had met at a restaurant. His British citizenship carries no legal weight, but it has focused attention on his other claims: That his judgment when he committed the crime was impaired by childhood beatings and a blood-sugar imbalance; and that the jurors who sentenced him to death should not have been told of three other crimes he had been linked to but not convicted of. ''The jury is left with the impression that if the prosecutor says it, it must be true,'' said Robert McGlasson, the public defender who represented Housel in his appeal. Danny Porter, the district attorney in Gwinnett County, Ga., where Housel was convicted, noted however that Housel's claims of an abusive childhood and trial irregularities were rejected by a federal appeals court. Housel, he said, admitted to a killing in Texas, a knife attack in Iowa and a sexual assault in Rhode Island after he was arrested in the Georgia case. Porter said it was not only fair but the ''prudent thing to do'' to introduce those admissions to the jury considering his fate. ''Tracy is a violent, dangerous man who made a living going around the country doing these kind of things,'' Porter said. '' He's good-looking, well-spoken, and he doesn't look scary at all, (but) he's one of the scariest people on death row.'' |
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