Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 21

The Arizona Republic SECTION BUSINESSB5 Columns Puzzlesb4 THURSDAY JULY 11, 1991 State Bishop predicts show of love, anger 7t i V.f Airline gets debt break Phoenix to delay America West tab Sexuality, racism expected to spark emotional sessions By Kim Sue Lia Perkes Arizona Republic Religion Editor Trying to temper what is expected to be an emotionally charged meeting, Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning opened the 70th Triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church with The convention, which will run through July 20, will wrestle with more than 500 resolutions on such topics as sexuality, the environment, gender-neutral liturgy, church finances and bioethics. Two topics are expected to dominate the convention: homosexual ordination and racism. The convention's opening service featured excerpts from speeches by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Episcopalians had considered pulling their convention out of Phoenix when Arizona voters in November rejected a diplomacy Wednesday night at Phoenix Civic Plaza. "The next 10 days will be among the most challenging days you are likely to have in 1991 unless you are planning to climb Mount Everest later in the year," Browning told about 5,000 Episcopalians gathered at the convention's opening worship service. "You will be warmed by love. You may be hot with anger. You will be exhilarated.

You will be frustrated. You will see the church in all of its glory and with every last one of its referendum creating a paid state holiday honoring King. Many dioceses had threatened to boycott the Phoenix convention, and other Episcopalians expressed outrage. But Browning refused to waver on the convention site. Instead, the church has decided to focus its attention on institutional racism, particularly within the church.

"There are people coming under protest," Browning said in an afternoon press conference Wednesday. See EMOTIONAL, page B2 Edmond L. Browning "The presence of anger is a sign that the church is alive." By Ken Western The Arizona Republic America West Airlines made a partial payment of $500,000 to Phoenix on Wednesday, but the financially troubled company still owes $1.7 million in rent and landing fees. However, the city is willing to grant a 30-day extension to America West to complete its July payment. Mayor Paul Johnson said Wednesday that the city wants to complete in 10 days an agreement with the airline that would guarantee payment by Aug.

10. If an agreement is not reached, the city will ask U.S. Bankruptcy Court to order that the money be paid, he said. The money is owed for landing fees at Sky Harbor International Airport 'i 5 RIDERSHIP UP: America West reports gain in June, BIO Gary R. UlikThe Arizona Republic Charles Hyder testifies in Maricopa County Superior Court on Wednesday.

He is accused by defense attorneys of withholding evidence while prosecuting John Henry Knapp in two slaying trials. 6 evidence onest istake on and for July rent at Barry M. Goldwater Terminal 4. The Phoenix-based airline was running out of money rapidly when it filed for protection from creditors on June 27 in Bankruptcy Court. Its cash balance was $19.6 million on May 31.

The company employs 9,000 in Phoenix and provides nearly 200 daily flights from Sky Harbor. "It helps," said Paul J. Meyer, a lawyer working with Phoenix on the America West situation. "It's certainly a sign of good faith on the part of the airline to try to deal with its obligations at the airport." The negotiations are intended partly to show that the city has confidence in America West, Johnson said. That confidence is likely to be one of the factors weighed by the airline's lenders in deciding whether to provide the company with new financing, he said.

It also is intended to help the airline get through this "short-term financial crunch," Johnson said. "However, we've outlined to them (the airline's officials), and we intend to outline to the public, that 30 days is as far as the city can go." The city's top priority is to protect its own financial well-being, but it also wants to do everything it can to help the hometown airline, Johnson said. In the wake of the airline's Chapter 11 filing, Standard Poor's Corp. placed $113 million of the airport's revenue bonds on its CreditWatch surveillance list with negative implications. The bonds have an rating, considered strong for an airport.

By Aug. 10, America West will owe Phoenix $3.9 million: the balance of the payment for July and the monthly See AMERICA WEST, pageB3 trial that the prints were smeared, Hyder replied, "In my opinion, I did." Hyder said he indicated to the judge that the statements were incorrect by telling him that "my appreciation of the evidence is different from his (Diettrich's)." Hyder also said that he thought the print evidence was important only because it eliminated the fact that children had touched the can, weakening a defense argument that the girls had accidentally started the fire. Because the family was using Coleman fuel for heating, the fact that John's or Linda's prints were on the can would not point to the innocence or guilt of either, he said. Hyder testified that he gave a copy of the tape of the phone call between Knapp and his wife to defense attorney David Basham in 1974. Basham and seven other former defense attorneys testified earlier in the hearing that they were unaware of the recording until this year.

interrogations, some of which provide evidence favorable to Knapp, and reports that neighbors had seen the girls playing with matches. The defense lawyers also claim that Hyder concealed evidence that Linda Knapp, then married to John Knapp, may have started the fire. They charge that Hyder misled the judge and jurors at Knapp's trials into believing that the prints on the Coleman can, referred to by some investigators as the murder weapon, could not be identified. It was disclosed last year that the prints were identifiable, the lawyers said, and were found to be those of Linda Knapp. Under questioning Wednesday by defense attorney Larry Hammond, Hyder said all required evidence in the case was revealed.

He denied that he misled the judge and jurors at Knapp's trials. Asked whether he ever corrected statements by Diettrich at the first evidence indicates that the girls may have set the fire accidentally. Knapp was released from prison, then arrested last summer when the murder charges were refiled. A hearing is being held before Judge Frederick Martone of Maricopa County Superior Court on a motion by defense attorneys to stop a third trial, scheduled for this fall. The motion, filed March 25, says that Knapp was found guilty in 1974 because Hyder and other officials improperly withheld evidence that could have proved his innocence.

The defense says that the alleged misconduct denied Knapp a fair trial and that the charges should be dropped. Among the evidence the lawyers claim Hyder concealed was a tape of a secretly recorded phone conversation in which Knapp denied killing his children and told his wife he made a false confession to protect her. They also say Hyder failed to disclose 32 recordings of police the time Knapp's first trial ended in a hung jury and a second trial began, he had forgotten the prints were clear. During Knapp's second trial in October 1974, Hyder reached a stipulation with defense attorney Charles Diettrich and Judge Charles Hardy that the jury would be told that unidentifiable, adult, smudged prints were found on the can. "In my opinion, there was an honest mistake made by myself, Mr.

Diettrich and Judge Hardy," said Hyder, a former Maricopa County attorney who now is an assistant U.S. attorney in Phoenix. Knapp, now 44, was convicted in his second trial of starting the 1973 fire that killed his daughters, Linda Louise, 3, and Iona Marie, 2, at the family's home east of Mesa. He was sentenced to death by Hardy. In 1987, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge granted Knapp a new trial, agreeing with defense claims that newly discovered scientific Prosecutor denies hiding Knapp data By Pamela Manson The Arizona Republic A prosecutor testified Wednesday that he made an "honest mistake" nearly 17 years ago when he told a judge and jury that fingerprints found on a pivotal piece of evidence in the John Henry Knapp slaying case were smudged and unidentifiable.

Charles Hyder, who prosecuted Knapp in two trials, acknowledged that he knew in August 1974 that prints found on a Coleman fuel can were clear and identifiable. Investigators believe fuel was poured from the can to start a fire that killed Knapp's two young daughters. But Hyder said Wednesday that by ll.lJHI''i DPS, Guard offer to help fight gangs Children with cancer look to time of cheer Create yule cards for benefit drive Wyoming and was unavailable for comment on whether he would sign the plan as submitted or ask for any modifications. "What we're saying is, 'In a coordinated effort, we're willing to pull from other areas to add to the gang said DPS Lt. Col.

David St. John, head of criminal investigations for the agency. Interim Phoenix Police Chief Dennis Garrett endorsed the plan Wednesday, saying it would be similar to the Phoenix Neighborhood Fight-back Program, which is aimed at helping residents regain control of neighborhoods from gangs. However, other city officials said they were unaware of the proposal. "I'm pleased that the state has made an offer to assist us," said Councilman John Nelson, whose district includes the target area, "but I'm absolutely amazed that they would do this in a vacuum." Mayor Paul Johnson said Wednesday night that he applauds the proposal by the DPS and the Arizona National Guard to get involved in the city's gang problem.

"The main thing is that their efforts are coordinated with the Phoenix Police Department," he said. Garrett and Assistant Chief Bennie Click attended a July 3 briefing on the plan with Symington, St. John, Maricopa County Attorney Richard 5eeOPS, pageB2 Propose patrols, surveillance to assist Phoenix By Jim Walsh and Mary Jo Pitzl The Arizona Republic The state Department of Public Safety and the Arizona National Guard have submitted a plan to Gov. Fife Symington to help Phoenix police combat the city's gang problem. Under the proposed "Arizona Gang Suppression Plan," DPS officers would conduct surveillance on a west Phoenix youth gang and launch "high-intensity patrols" on freeways, looking for gang members involved in freeway shootings or joyriding in stolen cars.

Guardsmen would staff surveillance cameras targeting drug activities, paint over gang graffiti and help residents clean up neighborhoods. However, the National Guard would not be involved in arrests or conducting military exercises, Gary Phelps, Symington's executive assistant for criminal justice and law enforcement, said Wednesday. "A lot of people have visions of tanks running down the streets, but that's not it at all," he said. Symington seemed receptive to the proposal when it was submitted July 3, Phelps said. The governor is on vacation in $100,000 this year, will help pay for family- and patient-counseling programs and special equipment used to diagnose different forms of cancer, said Jean Lockrow, a pediatric-on-cology counselor at the center.

Jayne Davidson, Benjamin's mother, said events such as Wednesday's have given Benjamin a chance to interact with children like himself. The center's monthly family night was especially helpful when Benjamin first was diagnosed with cancer, Davidson said. "He had lost his hair, at the meetings, he wasn't alone with that," she said. All activities at the outpatient center are provided at no additional cost to families whose children have been treated at Phoenix Children's Hospital. "The public's general perception of them (children with cancer) is different from what reality is," Lockrow said.

"The person assumes that whenever someone is diagnosed with cancer, that they are going to die. Overall, two out of three children with cancer will become long-term survivors. That's the positive in childhood cancer." By Christopher Heredia The Arizona Republic Christmas seems a long way off when it's a sweltering July in the Valley of the Sun. But the winter holiday was very much on the minds and in the hearts of three young cancer patients Wednesday morning. The three budding artists were at Heritage Graphics in Phoenix, watching their watercolor and crayon designs for Christmas cards rolling off the presses.

They and two other children, who could not attend Wednesday's printing, created five such designs as part of an annual card-sale project benefiting the Children's Cancer Center at Phoenix Children's Hospital. Benjamin Davidson, 6, of Mesa, nodded "yes" and nuzzled into his mother's leg when asked whether he was excited that his red Christmas-star card will be sent out to friends and family members during the holiday season. He was accompanied at the printing plant by Megan Kohrs, 5, of Mesa, and Darren Kendig, 6, of Peoria. The revenue from the card project, anticipated to reach Charles KrejcsiThe Arizona Republic John Morton (right), president of Heritage Graphics in Phoenix, explains the process of printing Christmas cards to cancer patients and siblings. The cards will be available within through the Phoenix law firm of the next 30 days, at $9 for a packet O'Connor, Cavanagh.

Further infor-of 20. They may be purchased mation is available at 263-2558..