WASHINGTON - President Clinton is postponing the first federal execution since 1963 so the death row inmate can ask for clemency under guidelines being updated by the government, the White House said Friday.
''Given that nearly 40 years has passed since the last prisoner was in this situation,'' the president ''wants new guidelines that reflect the realities of today's judicial system and the realities of today's federal capital cases,'' White House spokesman Jake Siewert said.
Juan Raul Garza is one of 21 people, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, on the federal death row at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. The 43-year-old inmate is to be executed by injection at 6 a.m. Aug. 5.
He was convicted in August 1993 in Brownsville, Texas, for killing three men between April 1990 and January 1991. A 10-count indictment named him as the boss of a drug ring that imported tons of marijuana into the United States between 1983 and 1993.
''The president wants to make sure that Mr. Garza has a full opportunity to submit a request for clemency, and that the president, himself, has an opportunity to review that matter completely,'' Siewert said, adding that the Justice Department would complete the clemency guidelines in a week or so.
The department also is studying whether racial minorities unfairly get more federal death sentences than white offenders. Two-thirds of the federal death row inmates are minorities.
The study, which is to be released this month, is expected to reveal that more than three-quarters of the federal prosecutions where the death penalty was sought have been against blacks, Hispanics or other minorities, according to Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who renewed his call on Friday to suspend all federal executions.
Feingold, along with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., and Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, wrote a letter to Clinton on June 30 asking him to create a national commission to review the fairness and accuracy of the administration of the federal death penalty.
''It must ensure that the federal death penalty is applied in a fair and just manner, sought against defendants free of even a hint of racial bias,'' the letter said.
Debate about the death penalty has been a touchstone in this year's presidential campaign. Garza's imminent execution has swung the spotlight on the issue to the Democrats after dogging Texas Gov. George W. Bush last month.
Gary Graham, who pleaded guilty to 10 aggravated robberies during a crime spree in 1981, was executed in Texas late last month after a series of unsuccessful appeals. Bush's state has put more people to death in the past two decades than any other. This year, 23 inmates, including Graham, were executed. Executions, at the rate of nearly one a week, will be held in Texas before Election Day on Nov. 7.
Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said the governor believes the death penalty deters crime, but Bush also ''understands the complexity of each individual death penalty decision, and views (the Garza) decision in that light.''
Campaigning in Pennsylvania Friday, Vice President Al Gore, who like Clinton supports the death penalty, said he supported efforts to put clemency procedures in place. He said he shared Clinton's concerns about the number of minorities receiving capital punishment, but added: ''I have not yet seen evidence that would justify a nationwide moratorium.''
Amnesty International USA, which staunchly opposes all executions, also is calling for an immediate moratorium on federal executions. The group praised Illinois Gov. George Ryan for his decision in January to suspend executions in his state until a state panel can determine whether the state is administering the death penalty fairly and justly.
''We call on President Clinton to recognize the inherent flaws in the death penalty and to immediately institute a moratorium on all federal executions,'' said William Schulz, executive director of the group.
