The New York Times

Sunday, February 20, 2000

Killing in a Georgetown Coffee Shop Stir Death Penalty Debate

By John Files

Washington, Feb. 19 - Federal prosecutors are pressing for the death penalty against a man charged with murdering three employees at a Starbucks coffee shop here in July 1997, clearing the way for the city's first death penalty case in nearly 30 years.

In an outline issued this week, the prosecutors said they wanted to press a capital charge because the defendant has a history of violent crime. They said he shows no remorse and poses a continuing threat.

Carl d. Cooper, 30, has been charged with the killings in the affluent Georgetown area of the city. The bodies of Emory Allen Evans, 25; Mary Caitrin Mahoney, 24; and Aaron David Goodrich, 18, were found by another Starbucks employee.

The case gained national attention because it involved one of the city's fashionable neighborhoods, a 34-square-block area northwest of downtown Washington known for bars, restaurants, boutiques and narrow residential streets of expense town houses. Georgetown is home to members of Congress, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and other major political figures, as well as

Georgetown university, but not to a great deal of crime or violence.

Attorney General Janet Reno decided to seek the death penalty for Mr. Cooper with advice from Wilma A. Lewis, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia. A death penalty review panel at the Justice Department concurred.

Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant United States attorney, in a 35-page document, cited Mr. Cooper's "continuing armed robberies of firearms and drugs dating to 1988, laundering of money obtained from robberies, and threats to murder witnesses and law-enforcement officers.

The case moved to federal court in August with a 48-count indictment against Mr. Cooper, charging him with crimes from 1983 to 1997. His trial is to start on May 2in United States District court in Washington.

The last person executed in the city was Robert E. Carter, 28, an unemployed laborer electrocuted on April 27, 1957, for killing an unarmed, off-duty police officer. The last trial in a capital case was in 1972.

The city repealed the death penalty in 1980. Residents voted overwhelming in the 1992 election to reject a provision that would have reinstated the death sentence.

City officials criticized Ms. Reno, saying she was ignoring the views of the city's residents, and urged that the city be allowed to handle the situation with some autonomy. If Mr. Cooper were prosecuted under local jurisdiction, the maximum sentence he could receive would be life in prison without parole.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's delegate to Congress, wrote to Ms. Lewis: "The application of the harshest and most controversial penalty in our law should not depend on whether the US attorney or a locally chosen prosecutor litigates the case."

Ms. Norton said in an interview "serious equal protection questions are raised" when a high-profile case is chosen for the death penalty. She said it was disturbing that with about 300 homicides in the city in a year, most of them in poor neighborhoods, federal officials chose to elevate a case from the "most glamorous part of Washington."

Mayor Anthony A. Williams said he agreed with Ms. Reno on the need for harsh penalties, including life in prison without parole, but, he said, "I do not support the death penalty."