The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 1

Neumann cites reforms, looks to future after year as sheriff ib Clinton to propose $71 million increase for food 8nspections4A WEATHER: Cool. High 63, low 48. 2A PANTHERS 6, ISLANDERS 2 SPORTS, 9C Broncos buck trend, beat Jaguars 42-17 Vikings rise up. favorite pictures ACCENT, ID raze Giants 23-22 fiEo A. ne raim Joeaci to mm mm mm mm mm mm mm IN SPORTS 3 FINAL EDITION 345 PAGES $1.25 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1997 4 fo) ill Ini earn Why women who kill are rarely executed ft Only one of 1 14 death sentences imposed on women since 1976 has been carried out.

But two upcoming execution dates have reignited debate. By Jenny Staletovich Palm Beach Post Staff Writer In a wing of a Broward County prison, off a hallway of pink walls and steel doors commonly known as The Row, six women await death. Theirs is a small sorority just 48 nationwide about to get smaller. Women, because of cultural influences, legal biases, nature or any number of theories, almost are never executed. Of the 114 death sentences imposed on women since 1976, only North Carolina's Velma Barfield, a nurse who poisoned four people including her mother, was put to death.

One in eight killers is a woman, but only one in 370 executed was a woman. "The death penalty for women," one expert said, "is rarer than Halley's comet." But in recent weeks, Texas and Florida set execution dates for two women. Texas Gov. George W. Bush plans on putting Karla Faye Tucker, 38, to death Jan.

30, while Gov. Lawton Chiles scheduled Judi Buenoano's death for 7:01 a.m. March 30. If executed, Tucker and Buenoano will be the first women killed in 15 years and only the second and third since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Nationwide, the prospects of executing two women two months apart has reignited the death penalty debate, persistent in this country like a low-grade fever that occasionally spikes. Opponents say Tucker's and Buenoano's warrants seal the argument that the death penalty is applied inconsistently and, therefore, unconstitutionally. Supporters, however, say it proves the machine is running smooth- ly. "Juries are not just giving the death penalty to anyone who commits murder, but making individual judgments and using it on the nastiest murders and murderers," said Alex Kozinski, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California who writes frequently about upholding death sentences.

"I don't think this is proof at all that the system is not working, but proof the Please see DEATH PENALTY64 Medicare to offer cheaper cancer testing President Clinton announces reforms that will make screenings affordable for 39 million older Americans. The Associated Press WASHINGTON President Clinton, with holiday reflections on the loss of his mother to breast cancer, outlined Medicare reforms that take effect New Year's Day to make cancer screenings less expensive for 39 million older Americans. "Nearly every American family has been touched by the shadow of cancer," Clinton said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "By detecting cancer early on, we offer our loved ones one of the greatest gifts of all the gifts of life, health and many holidays to come." Under the balanced budget agreement negotiated with Congress this year, the nation's 39 million Medicare beneficiaries will be guaranteed regular tests for breast, cervical and colon-rectal cancer. Studies show that early detection of these cancers can boost survival rates as high as 90 percent to 100 percent.

The expanded Medicare coverage kicks in Thursday. "We're ringing in the new year resolved to take new steps in our battle against cancer, one of mankind's oldest foes," Clinton said. In the radio broadcast Saturday, Clinton mourned the absence of his late mother, Virginia Kelley, whom he telephoned every Sunday evening before she died of breast cancer four years ago Jan. 6. "Especially at this time of year, I miss her a lot," Clinton said Saturday.

He highlighted these new Medicare benefits: No deductible for annual breast X-rays and the guaranteed option of annual mammograms for all Medicare-eligible women age 40 and older. Previously, Medicare covered only biennial mammograms for some age groups and not at all for others. Coverage to pay for Pap smears and pelvic exams every three years, or annually for women who are at high risk for cervical cancer. Clinton said survival rates for cervical cancer are almost 100 percent when it's found and treated early. For the first time, coverage for regular colorectal cancer screenings.

Before the new law, Medicare paid for the tests only when patients showed symptoms indicative of cancer in the colon or rectum. Diagnosed early, the cancer can be treated with a 90-percent survival rate, but the rate drops to 7 percent when the cancer is missed until its advanced stage, Clinton said. Voters starting to make demands to pass school tax The biggest promise the school board must make: Safeguards so $60 million won't be misspent. By Stephanie Desmon Palm Beach Post Staff Writer The school of thought on new taxes goes like this: People hate them, and it takes something pretty special to turn votes into pennies. In the days after the Palm Beach County School Board decided to ask voters for a half-penny sales tax to build classrooms, people already are starting to make demands about what it will take for them to say yes.

1 And even those most likely to support it have demands: Tell us what you plan to do and how you promise to safeguard $60 million a year. Those promises are key to the success of the Campaign for the tax and even though supporters say they need every minute possible to rally voters, there is no plan to sell yet and there won't be until sometime this spring, school officials said. "I think it's a bit sketchy on the details right now to take a position," said Don Mathis, president of the Economic Council of Palm Beach County, a group the school board would love to have on its side. The district has been held up before by the lack of a detailed plan outlining which schools would be built or renovated with the money. In July 1996, a sales tax referendum appeared to be headed to the voters until Superintendent Joan Kowal told the board she and her staff just weren't prepared to move forward with the construction projects.

This time, they said the state is to blame for the delay. Guidelines for building schools, guidelines which will help them determine how many new schools and how much renovation they can do, won't be ready until February. The urgency is coming from outside the school district offices. One group the Palm Beach County Council of PTAs is siding with the tax, even without specifics. The group passed a resolution favoring a whole penny in 1996.

Its members have children who eat lunch at 10 a.m. because the cafeteria can't handle the crowds and have kids who get wet running If Please see SCHOOL 11V4A LIU XINStaff Photographer Andrea Hicks Jackson, the first woman in Florida for whom a death warrant was signed, is one of six women on Death Row. She was convicted of killing a Jacksonville police officer in 1983. STORY, 6A Inside 'Marvin would say, "If I could make a million dollars honestly or dishonestly, I'll make it dishonestly because it's more fun. Telemarketing fraud Now you'll know if your chicken is fresh' Only chickens that have never been chilled to below 27 degrees Fahrenheit can be labeled according to Agriculture Department rules that took effect this month.

STORY, 2A king runs out of angles 'K 4 T.J ANN ABEJY 2D FLA. NEWS EB BOOKS 8J HOROSCOPE 2D BUSINESS IF LOTTERIES 2A.5A BRIDGE COMICS SCORES 17C CLASSIFIEDS 1G THEATERS 4J DEATHS 8B TRAVEL II EDITORIALS 2E TV SPORTS 2C CROSSWORDS CLASSIFIEDS, COMICS ByVal Ellicott Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Marvin Wolf knew that tricking people into spending thousands of dollars on vending machines he couldn't deliver might create a sticky legal problem for him someday. But Wolf never saw prison as a likely end to his dreams of wealth. He had an infallible gift for manipulating other people and even better, he had what he thought was a foolproof plan. "If they ever arrest me," he told managers at his telemarketing company in Boca Raton, "I'm going to plead insanity." It wasn't just talk.

When federal agents closed his company in 1994 and charged him with duping people into buying pizza-vending machines they never received, Wolf did plead insanity, citing medical records diagnosing him as a paranoid schizophrenic. gf PALM BEACH Weather, fV INTERACTIVE news, sports www. GoPDI.com and views IHt AbSOUAItD PRfcSS FOR HOME DELIVERY SERVICE 8204663 1-8006 54-1231 READY-MADE EXCUSE: Marvin Wolf told managers at his facility in Boca Raton that if he was ever arrested for telemarketing fraud, he would beat the rap by pleading insanity. What he thought was a foolproof plan rtdn't work. Copyright 1997 Palm Beach Post Vol.

64 No. 1 13 sections Tornado rips through central Florida One hundred mobile homes were destroyed Saturday when an early morning tornado skipped through Haines City (above) and Winter Haven. Four people were injured. LOCALLY: Clouds are expected to clear, but it'll stay cool. STORIES, 6B aoivoooo' Please see TELEMARKETING.