Emotions high over death penalty
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By Alan J. Keays Herald Staff - Published: May 19, 2005
BURLINGTON — Opposing views on the death penalty were aired Wednesday both in the fifth-floor courtroom of U.S. District Court in Burlington and outside the building on a sidewalk below.
During a noon recess in the jury selection process for the upcoming death penalty trial of accused killer Donald Fell, about two dozen capital punishment opponents took to the sidewalk in front of the federal building on Elmwood Avenue.
The death penalty trial is the first in nearly 50 years in Vermont.
Fell, 25, faces execution for allegedly carjacking Tressa King, 53, of North Clarendon on Nov. 27, 2000, in Rutland and then beating her to death in New York state.
Holding signs reading "Keep the Death Penalty Out of Vermont," and "No Death Penalty Anywhere," capital punishment opponents, ranging in age from early 20s to mid-80s, gathered at noon and gave media interviews explaining their position.
A short ways down the sidewalk, King's family answered questions from the press about their support for executing Fell.
Death penalty opponents outside the federal building said they plan to hold similar protests each Wednesday through the jury selection process and then during Fell's trial.
"There is no death penalty in Vermont and I think we should keep it that way," said David Buckingham, 22, a Burlington resident and University of Vermont student studying philosophy. He was one of the first protesters to arrive.
"I think that trying to go forward with the death penalty in the court here in Burlington is part of an attempt to legalize the death penalty in states that don't have it and I think that's wrong," Buckingham said.
Many protesters opposed the federal government taking jurisdiction in the case. Vermont is one of about a dozen states without a death penalty. However, King's death involved crossing state lines, and prosecutors moved forward with federal prosecutions and applied the federal penalty statute.
Many protesters Wednesday argued that seeking the death penalty in Fell case is an attempt by the Bush administration to impose the death penalty on states that do not have capital punishment.
Several protesters also objected to a move in 2002 by John Ashcroft, U.S. attorney general at the time, rejecting a plea deal that would have spared Fell's life.
The deal would have required Fell to plead guilty to charges of kidnapping with death resulting, in exchange for a lifetime jail sentence with no chance for parole.
"We think that if the state has out-lawed the death penalty, the federal government should respect that," Allen Gilbert, executive director of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said outside the courthouse Wednesday.
"This is about the death penalty. It's not about Donald Fell. We think killing is barbaric, whether it's done by an individual or the state," Gilbert added. "We think that the federal government is making a show out of the fact that Vermont is an abolishment state, abolitionist in the sense that the state does not have the death penalty."
Nancy Welch, 42, of Burlington, another protester, agreed.
"This is George Bush's attempt to impose the death penalty in a state that doesn't support it," she said. "He was the Texa-cutioner. … He would very much like to start that up here and we say, 'No.'"
While the protesters were gathered at one end of the sidewalk, about a half-dozen of King's family members stood about 20 yards away on the sidewalk, united in their support for the death penalty for Fell.
"It's OK for them to stand there, that is their right," Lori Hibbard of Rutland, King's daughter, said of the protesters, her voice cracking with emotion. "But (Fell) had plenty of opportunity to let my mother go and he decided not to. He decided my mother mother's fate so I think a jury should decide his."
King's family has attended every court hearing in Burlington in the case over the past nearly five years. They spoke of the range of emotions they feel in the courtroom and the thoughts they have when looking at Fell as he sits at the defendant's table.
"I play over and over and over again in my head, him stomping my mother to death and throwing rocks on her," Hibbard said. "It's a tremendously stressful thing."
Barbara Tuttle of North Clarendon, King's sister, said the protest has not caused her to waver in support of executing Fell.
"The death penalty is an option for people that murder a perfectly innocent victim with no reason and no excuse," Tuttle told reporters. "It wasn't self-defense. He brutally murdered her while she prayed for her life. If this is not a case for the death penalty, then you tell me one that is."
Tuttle later added that years ago, when she spoke to her sister about cases involving violent crimes, King spoke in support of the death penalty for those who committed such offenses.
"She was a very kindhearted person and it really bothered her a lot when she saw tragedies like that," Tuttle said of her late sister. "She felt that people who did that were monsters and should be punished."
Fell and the late Robert Lee, reportedly high on crack cocaine, allegedly kidnapped King as she was parking her car early in the morning and getting ready to go to work at the Price Chopper grocery store in downtown Rutland.
According to police, hours earlier the two men had already killed two other people in Rutland, including Fell's mother.
They took King and her car and drove to New York state, where police said the two men beat King to death. The two men were arrested three days later in Arkansas. Fell has been jailed since his arrest. Lee killed himself in prison in 2001.
Family members Wednesday also cleared up a bit of confusion over King's name.
Her first name has been spelled "Teresca" in official court records since her death as a result of a misspelling on her car registration, which police recovered when they arrested Fell and Lee in Arkansas.
However, King's birth certificate listed her first name as "Tressa" and she was known to family and friends as Terry.
Jury selection in the case began May 4.
Fell sat Wednesday in court between his attorneys at the defense table, thumbing through papers in front of him as the potential jurors answered questions.
By the end of the morning proceedings Wednesday, 38 potential jurors had made it past the first round of jury selection. They will be called back into court in a few weeks as attorneys continue to try to seat a 12-member panel and additional alternates. The trial will take place once the jury is seated.
The attorneys are seeking to obtain a pool of 70 potential jurors qualified to serve on a jury, which will hear the death penalty case.
A total of eight potential jurors were questioned individually Wednesday morning, with only one invited back for the next round.
Some of those excused were released from jury duty because they too strongly favor the death penalty and others because they said they could never impose a death sentence.
"If you murdered someone, your life should be terminated also," said one woman excused from jury duty.
The woman added that she believed prisons were already too full with offenders serving lengthy sentences for violent crimes and the death penalty might be a way to reduce that overcrowding.
Another woman offered another view on the death penalty.
"I just don't think it's up to us to decide," said the woman who was excused from the jury for her opposition to the death penalty. "I don't have strong religious affiliations or views, I just don't feel that it is something I am entitled to do, any of us are entitled to do."
One woman Wednesday morning did make it to the next round of jury selection.
"I believe in the death penalty," the woman said. "I don't believe every single murder case warrants the death penalty. It depends on the facts and circumstances."
Contact Alan J. Keays at alan.keays@rutlandherald.com.
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