IMS
Dragging death killer
to be kept isolation
B> MARK BABINECK
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
* -
HI NTSMLLE. Texas - John William King's days on death row
might be spent in isolation from both black and white inmates expected
to have a score to settle with the racist killer. ?
King. 24. arrived on death row at the Ellis Unit around 4:30 p.m. Fri
day, one day after he was sentenced to die by lethal injection for helping
to drag a black man to death behind a pickup truck last year.
All inmates w ho come to death row are kept apart from thq other 443
condemned men until prison officials determine when - or if - they will
be allowed to spend recreation time with others.
"Any new ly arriving inmate on death row immediately goes to a sin
gle cell situation and will stay in that cell 23 hours a day," Texas Depart
ment of Criminal Justice spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said. "He'll get
one hour of recreation a day and will be recreated alone. He will not have
contact with any other inmates."
Since all deith row inmates' work privileges were suspended after the
unsuccessful escape attempt by seven condemned men last November,
they only get one hour a day outside their cells in a recreation yard.
Prisoners' rights advocate Ray Hill, a proponent of the work pro
gram. said King might never be given such freedom, for his own protec
tion.
"This guy is a flashpoint to some of the population on death row, so
to keep Texas from having another Jeffrey Dahmer situation, they'll keep
him in pretty close quarters," Hill said. Dahmer was the notorious Mil
waukee serial child killer beaten to death by another inmate in 1994.
Texas death row inmates' only face-to-face contact with each other
occurs in recreation yards about half the size of a basketball court.
"Inmates who are compatible, we allow them to recreate together in
small groups," Fitzgerald said. "Those we consider to be needing protec
tion or whd could be dangerous to other inmates are recreated by them
selves."
Prosecutors argued this week that King- who has dozens of racist tat
toos, could be a threat to minorities behind bars. Similarly, the 187 black
men on death row might want to avenge the June 1998 killing of James
Byrd Jr. near Jasper.
Blacks aren't the only ones who have issues with King.
"What happened is that King made a claim when he was first brought
into custody that he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood," Fitzger
ald said, referring to a white prison gang.
"Our investigation has revealed he was never a member. But as a
result of making that claim, our gang intelligence people focused a lot of
attention on the AB's that they did not want!,He's not popular with tfle
AB's."
If King remains segregated, he'll be able to talk with other inmates
through cell bars but rarely will see them.
"Maybe he'd get a glimpse of an inmate being taken for a shower,"
Fitzgerald said. "It's not like he'd be sitting around in a sewing circle."
King's attorney. Brack Jones, noted his client's miserable prison
prospects during closing arguments. He called King "a dead man walk
ing" whether he got life in prison or the death penalty.
On average, new death row inmates can expect to spend six or seven
years imprisoned before their appeals run out. A prisoner who chooses
not to appeal could be executed in less than two years.
Hill fears that even in segregation. King could become a martyr for
those who share his extreme beliefs.
"His isolation is going to have the ancillary effect of giving every
other racist; Aryan nut a young, attractive role model." Hill said.
Grisly Texas murder
trial not a first
"% * . < ? ?
60 years ago, another black
man was murdered by a King
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS .
p JU,
NORFOLK, V*. - For Ronald King, his adopted son's trial fpr drag
ging a black man to his death in Texas revived memories of his brother's
ijiurder trial 60 years ago in Norfolk.
Law ence M. King. 19. and another young Marine said they killed a
traveling salesman, but only after he made a pass and then attacked them
for resisting. A jury acquitted the pair in 29 minutes during the Aug. 22.
1939. trial as a crowd outside cheered. ,
"It was a hate crime, too." Ronald King. 67, told The Dallas' Morn
ing News. "Course, they didn't have that word for it back then....
"There's a lot of similarities to this thing with Bill," said King, whose
son John William King last week was sentenced to die for chaining James
Byrd Jr to a pickup truck and dragging him to his death "Kinda eerie
ones, really."
In both cases, the victims were disabled and 49. and the defendants
were tied to the crimes by FBI lab work.
F Teague Jennings, a member of a prominent Georgia family, arrived
in Norfolk on July 24, 1939. on a business trip and checked into a hotel.
At 11 p.m.. a bellboy heard moans coming from Jennings' room and
found Jennings sprawled across a bloody bed. his head battered. Jennings
died a few hours later.
Witnesses had seen two Marines accompany Jennings to his room.
Fingerprints were found on two broken beer bottles in the room, and a
Marine's khaki shirt, stained with blood, was pulled from the Elizabeth
River.
Police checked the fingerprints of Marines in Norfolk but had no
luck. Then, the FBI in Washington matched the prints to two Marines
stationed with a regiment on the aircraft earner USS Ranger: Lawrence
King and Wallace E. Miller. 18.
The Marines said Jennings chatted with them as they stood in a door
way. seeking cover from a thunderstorm. Miller said Jennings invited
them to have beer with him at a tavern, then come up to his hotel room,
according to trial testimony from Detective Leon Notwitzky.
The Marines said they drank more beer in the room. Jennings
stripped to his shorts and invited them to spend the night because of the
rain.
Miller told Notwitzky he was in the bathroom when he heard a com
motion and returned to find King and Jennings struggling.
Miller said he hit Jennings on the head with a beer bottle, and that
Set Muidti rm All |
Black scholar who fled country still looking for amnesty I
By ALLEN G. BREED
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBANY, Ga. - In the annals
of the civil rights movement, Pre
ston King isn't even a footnote.
But to his family, he is an unfin
ished chapter.
In 1958. the local draft board
refused to extend King's defer
ment to pursue his education. He
had been granted time to get a
master's degree at the prestigious
London School of Economics and
Political Science. ?But now, ready
to pursue a doctorate, he was told
to report for induction.
King, who is black, refused,
accusing the all-white board of
racism.
His proof? The board secre
tary's insistence on addressing him
by his first name in correspon
dence - and a couple centuries of
history.
"I have received government
orders with which I cannot in
principle comply due to an imme
diately conspicuous defect in
form," he wrote in 1959 to the
Selective Service's state headquar
ters. "And in the* end I should
rather sit in prison, or do whatev
er else, than submit - an act which
1 could never square with my con
science - to this reflection of a stu
pid and inane racialism in govern
ment."
In 1961, King was convicted of
failing to report, and was sen
tenced tb 18 months in federal
prison.
The young man who had said
he hoped to become a U.S. diplo
mat instead began a life outside
the United1 States as a fugitive. He
fled the country and, for the better
part of four decades, has not
dared return - even for the funer
als of his parents and. brother.
Today, the ambitious youth
from this small south Georgia
town is a renowned political
philosopher and author in Eng
land. where his daughter. Oona
King, is a member of Parliament.
Last year, she showed up in
Georgia with a BBC television
crew and instantly put her father's
long dormant case back on the
front burner - and Albany's segre
gated past on trial.
The file of King's trial had
long ago been packed away, the
hopeful 20-year-old face on his
passport photo stamped "CAN
CELED." But now, the U.S.
Department of Justice has ordered
a copy to review.
Oona King and her American
relatives are using her clout to
push for a presidential amnesty.
And so today's justice system has
been called upon to decide
whether King was a legitimate
protester rejecting generations of
humiliating denigration or just a
spoiled academic who played the
race card.
"This is kind of a cosmic joke,"
says King, now a goateed scholar
with an Australian passport and
an accent more British than Amer
ican. ^
Albany is a city of 76.000 in
the pecan- and peach-growing
areas about, 145 miles south of
Atlanta. Once dominated by beef
packing plants and cotton mills,
the local economy is now driven
by the likes of Procter & Gamble.
Merck and Miller Brewing. Half
the city's 76,000 residents are
black, and blacks hold four of the
six city commission seats.
It is a world away from the seg
regated Albany of King's child
hood.
it' r_-.i r>u! imr i/:
ms iamer. v lennon w. iving, a
respected entrepreneur in the
black community, would park his
ipodest Chevrolet two blocks away
when collecting rents from white
tenants, so as not to appear too
"uppity." Carol King. King's sis
ter-in-law. remembers the humilia
tion of having to cover her hair
with tissue paper before trying on
hats at the local department store.
King's brother. Clennon Jr.,
applied for a. place in the all-white
University of Mississippi; instead
of being .considered, he was certi
fied insane When another brother.
Paul, requested a college defer
ment in the early 1950s, the draft
board informed him he didn't need
to go to school.
Today, in his office at Albany
State University, where he is a pro
fessor of English and modern lan
guages. 67-year-old Paul King
says. "It was a matter of the way
people thought of blacks, that
they were supposed to be more
subservient and that they were
supposed to think about agricul
ture or domestic work - things of
that sort."
But the seven King boys were
brought up to think differently.
Their father, who helped found
the local chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, and their
mother. Margaret, a graduate of
Tuskegee and Fisk. universities,
always encouraged them to go to
college.
"So many people had been
conditioned to think that they
were less than others," Paul King
says. "And Preston was a person
who had been taught to soar, to do
his best." ?
Preston King, the youngest
child, was at historically black
Fisk University in Nashville,
Tenn., when he reported for the
draft and received his first defer
ment. It was 1954, the year the
U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Brown Vs. Board of Education
desegregated the public schools.
When Jacqueline Terry, secre
tary of Local Board No. 48 in
Albany, wrote to him in November
to inform him of reporting proce
dures, she began the letter; "Dear
Sir,"
Two years later, when King
applied for permission to study
abroad, he appeared in person.
When Terry saw that he was black,
he contends, she turned her back
on him and was cool.
From then on. letters from the
board were addressed, "Dear Pre
ston."
wnne King says mat rankled
him. he did not make an issue of it
until 1958. when his deferment,
was up.
He was traveling in Europe
when the board notified him his
deferment had expired. When he
failed to respond to a second let
ter. Terry sent him an induction
notice.
With a scholarship in hand to
pursue a doctorate and the offer of
a teaching position, King sent two
quick letters in September 1958,
apologizing for his tardy response
and asking for more time. The
board refused to reopen his case
and ordered him back to Albany.
King exploded.
"In your correspondence with
me, conducted in the name of the
Board, you have adopted a style
and tone which I consider quite
frankly harsh and very nearly bul
lying," he wrote in October. "You
have, too, been studiedly discour
teous, a fact illustrated by your
practice of addressing me, a per
son you-do not know, and in offi
cial correspondence, by my Chris
tian name, and without a title."
King informed the board that
"any such correspondence
received by me shall simply be
ignored, regardless of personal
consequences." ,
Terry says the board was more
than fair with King, granting him1
a two-year deferment when one
year was the standard. As for her
a
manner of addressing him, she
says her orders were to address all
candidates by their first names,
regardless of race.
"I was professional." says
Terry, the only surviving member
of that draft board.
King says he expected the
board would be reprimanded. But
when a colonel in Atlanta
reviewed the case and ruled there
was no discrimination, King dis
missed it as merely rubber-stamp
ing.
When King came home in 1960
to lecture and visit his family, he
was arrested.
During his three-day trial in
U.S. District Court at Albany,
King's defense attorneys, includ
ing his brother C.B.. sought to
show that he did not willfully shirk
his responsibility. They also tried
to prove discrimination.
But King offered no evidence
that white candidates were
addressed differently from blacks.
There was no testimony about any
white student being granted a
deferment in similar circum
stances. (The national military
draft was discontinued in 1976,
and Ms. Terry says all of the local
board's records have been
destroyed.)
King was released pending
appeal but instead jumped his
$2,500 bond and returned to Eng- '
land - leaving behind a system
that had B0040151 rejected what
he saw as an offer to redeem itself.
"There is nothing legitimate
about what was done in my case."
he says from his office at Lancast
See Scholar on AS
Photo by The Aaaociated Preoe
Carol King hold* an okl family photo in Albany, Go., shewing hor
brother-in-law, Preston King (footed loft) along with hit parents and
six brothers. Preston King, 62, now lives in England after fleeing a
draft evasion conviction in 1961, which he claims was based en
racism.
I' ? ? ? ; <1
? ? '
' I
With FHA's new I
I
hl^hsf loan limits, I
* 1
you can buy your I
dream home. |
*
? -
*+ *? ? i I
o ? "
p>
y Since 1934 we've helped over 26 million Americans get into new
^ / homes. And starting this year, HUD can help you get a home loan for
n| I up to $208,800. Be sure to check with your lender to find out what
M the FHA-insured loan limits are in your area. We can also help you
with any questions you might have. Just call 1 -800-HUDS-FHA and ask
for our free 100 Questions and Answers brochure. If II tell you how
to get an FHA loan for as little as 3% down. How to choose the right ?
lender. How to prepare yourself for the homebuying process. "1
And much more. In fact, if you're looking for a home, it's all [\"| "1
the information you need.. JL AL^vl