ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 16, 1997 TAG: 9703170071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE
SOURCE: THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
Staff writer Diane Struzzi contributed to this story.
Charlotte federal prosecutors, who win more than 90 percent of their cases, will try to seek the death penalty for Aquilia Barnette, accused of a Roanoke murder.
Federal prosecutors are prepared to seek the death penalty against Aquilia Barnette, accused of killing a Charlotte motorist and then fatally shooting a former girlfriend in Roanoke while her mother looked on.
If Attorney General Janet Reno approves, it will mark the first time federal prosecutors in North Carolina have sought the death penalty since it was reinstated in 1988 as part of the government's war on drugs.
Federal prosecutors rarely seek the death penalty. Usually, death penalty cases are handled by state prosecutors. Those convicted are sentenced to death under state murder statutes.
Only 12 men have been sentenced to death for federal crimes since Congress enacted those laws targeting drug kingpins and drug-related murders.
U.S. Attorney Mark Calloway would not say why prosecutors are considering seeking the death penalty against Barnette.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Conrad, who is prosecuting Barnette, would only say, ``Violent crime in general and violence against women in particular are priorities of this office.''
Barnette's defense attorney, meanwhile, worries about going against the federal government.
``It's scary,'' said Charlotte lawyer George Laughrun, one of Barnette's two court-appointed attorneys. ``The federal courts are known for long, long, long sentences. Now we've got a federal death case.
``The feds in Charlotte get convictions in more than 90 percent of their cases.''
Death penalty experts, including Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, don't think there will be a flood of capital prosecutions in federal courts.
``The message is out there for federal prosecutors to be selective and have good reasons - not just that it's a horrendous crime - for seeking the death penalty,'' Dieter said. ``There has to be a special federal interest where the whole country needs to be concerned about the crimes.''
Barnette was arrested last June in Charlotte and charged with killing Donald Lee Allen of McConnells, S.C. Police say Allen, 22, was shot to death along Billy Graham Parkway during a carjacking of his 1994 Honda Prelude.
Barnette, 23, is accused of then driving to Roanoke and killing 23-year-old Robin Antoinette Williams, his former girlfriend. Police say he blasted his way into the home with a shotgun and confronted Williams' mother. He then chased her daughter outside, where she was shot in the chest.
``I saw my child shot to death standing right beside me,'' recalled Bertha Williams as she held back tears. ``I saw my child take her last breath.
``My daughter's life was taken for no reason. No reason. I don't think he deserves to live. I am hoping he gets the death penalty.''
Shortly after her daughter's death, Bertha Williams questioned why police could not find Barnette sooner. They began looking for him in April 1996, after Robin Williams' Northeast Roanoke apartment was firebombed.
The FBI finally arrested Barnette in Charlotte after Allen and Williams had been killed. In the days following those slayings, Roanoke and Charlotte police said the hunt for Barnette was plagued by mistakes and miscommunication between the two departments.
Through a court document filed last month in Charlotte, prosecutors Conrad and Thomas Walker notified Barnette's defense attorneys that they are considering seeking the death penalty.
They will have to persuade Reno that the facts surrounding the murders of Williams and Allen justify the death penalty. They could cite several reasons.
Barnette, for example, is accused of committing murder during a carjacking - one of dozens of crimes Congress has targeted for death penalty prosecutions. He also is accused of committing murders in two states and of interstate domestic violence.
And prosecutors are calling Barnette an armed career criminal with prior convictions in two states. Those convictions include pointing a gun, battery, felonious cruelty to children, and breaking and entering.
Defense attorneys will get an opportunity to persuade federal prosecutors, both in Charlotte and, if necessary, at the Justice Department in Washington, not to seek the death penalty.
Of the 12 men who have been sentenced to death in federal courts since 1988, all but two are from Texas, Virginia and Louisiana. None has been executed.
Reno, since taking office in 1993, has reviewed 122 possible death penalty cases. Fifty-six times, she has authorized prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
Even when prosecutors are given the go-ahead, they sometimes opt to negotiate for sentences of life in prison without parole.
That happened last year in Raleigh after prosecutors were given authorization to seek the death penalty in the case of a gang accused of drug racketeering and vicious murders in the Durham, Raleigh and Rocky Mount areas.
In Charlotte this week, defense attorney Laughrun began sifting through hundreds of pages of documents - including witness statements and lab, ballistic and autopsy reports - outlining the investigations into the murders of Allen and Williams.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say Barnette led them to Allen's body in a drainage ditch. In Roanoke, police say witnesses identified Barnette as the man who shot his way into Bertha Williams' home and spotted a car similar to Allen's blue Prelude driving away from the murder scene.
Two days later, the Prelude was found in a parking lot in Charlotte. In a trash bin near the abandoned car was a shotgun - the weapon police believe Barnette used to gun down both Allen and Williams.
Barnette is being held without bond in the Mecklenburg County Jail. His attorney isn't optimistic that prosecutors will drop their pursuit of the death penalty.
Said Laughrun: ``He's in a lot of trouble.''
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