Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 4

PAGE 4 PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS- WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBERW1999 have a confession to make about yesterday's killing of New Jersey death-row inmate Robert "Mudman" Simon by his neighbor Ambrose Harris: Im lent freaks of nature as if they are human beings, the violent freaks themselves have no such hangups. In prison as on the street, the absence of lawyers encourages clarity of intent and directness of purpose. That's what happened yester OK with it I wouldVe been equally OK if Simon had killed Harris, or if they had beaten convicted of the 1992 rape and murder of Kristin Huggins, a 22-year-old artist from Lower Makefield, who spent her final moments pleading with him to spare her life. In lieu of remorse, Harris disrespected his victim's family in court. Both Mudman and Harris were on death row, which is meaningless because New Jersey restored the death penalty in 1982 but hasn't executed anyone since 1963.

So I'm OK with yesterday's events. It wasn't clear at press time whether Simon and Harris were spending their daily one to three hours of indoor recreation playing cards or working on puzzles when the fatal confrontation occurred. It's too bad that death-row inmates only get to recreate indoors together for one to three hours each day. If they were allowed to play together all day long, maybe we could abolish the death penalty. Courts waffle, but this killing was real justice each other to death.

I'm ambivalent about the death penalty, but not about the death match. These days, when courts have sunk into self-parody by bending over backward to slap killers on the wrists, when delusional judges attempt to rehab violent offenders by delivering half-baked social work from the bench, and when parole boards completely lose their minds (i.e., releasing Mudman), a death- day. The loser the late Mudman of the Warlocks motorcycle gang was on death row for the coldblooded 1995 murder of Jersey police officer Ippolito Gonzalez during a car stop. No regrets. No apologies.

No recognizable human emotion. Less than three months before the murder, the Pennsylvania parole board had released Mudman from prison, where he had served 12 years for murdering his 19-year- row death match is as close as we get to criminal justice. What could be more fair than the fate of a cold-blooded killer being determined by a peer? old girlfriend because she refused to have sex with a gang of his fellow Warlocks. No regrets. No apologies.

No recognizable human emotion. i or call Dan at Send e-mail to geringAdphillynews.f 215-854-596L Unlike courts, which insist on treating vio- Yesterday's winner, Ambrose Harris, was DM jj STATE Or NIAFjKktlST mm WJ VmFmA kU IT Jl 'o fiW 'RjflBDGfllUfflDD SI VII. PRISON i'- I Continued from Page 3 state correctional officers who handle 30,000 state Inmates. "If there is a history between two individuals, they never would have been put together," he said. Only six months ago, however, Harris assaulted a guard with a mop handle, on sources said.

His penalty: more prison time. The IS death-row inmates are housed get a shiv knife in my back at any time in prison." After his co-defendant, Charles "Shovel" Staples, also a Warlock, was spared the death penalty, Simon recanted his guilty plea, claiming he was coerced. But the state Supreme Court upheld his sentence last month. "I saw justice when he was sentenced," said the dead police sergeant's brother, Louis Gonzalez, last night. At the time of his 1995 parole, Simon i had served 12vi years of a 20-year sentence in the death of his girlfriend, Beth Smith Dusenberg, 19, a stenographer found in an abandoned Luzerne County strip mine in 1981 seven years after disappearing.

He had ordered her to have sex with other Warlocks, and when she refused, he shot her between the eyes. In 1984, Simon allegedly stabbed inmate Jose Gonzalez, with a 14V2-inch shiv, after threatening to send him to "Puerto Rican heaven" when a drug deal soured. in a two-tier prison, and permitted one hour of outdoor recreation, where groups of five play basketball, handball or jog. They also are allowed one to three hours of indoor recreation daily in the cage in the middle of the cellblock, where they play cards or do puzzles. Eleven weeks after Simon was paroled from a Pennsylvania prison on May 29, 1995, he gunned down Franklin Township Police Sgt.

Ippolito "Lee-Gonzalez in New Jersey, setting off a controversy in two states. Both governors Tom Ridge and Christie Whit ASSOCIATED PRESS Police Sgt Ippolito "Lee" Gonzalez: Slain by Robert "Mudman" Simon Witnesses later recanted on the stand, and Simon was acquitted. Like Simon, Harris had a long criminal record, with four theft or robbery convictions, two parole violations and repeated discipline problems. Appeals have delayed their executions on the murder convictions. Harris was originally scheduled to die in 1996 after the death penalty was reinstated in 1982.

Simon had not received an execution date. During Harris' murder trial. Prosecutor See MUDMAN Page 32 man were on the hot seat and vowed to reform the prison and parole system and scrutinize the release of inmates. Repercussions are still being felt. Simon himself felt the pressure.

Prior to allowing Simon to enter a guilty plea in the Gonzalez killing, a judge, who received a report that Simon was being pressured by the Warlocks, quizzed Simon about whether he was threatened or coerced to change his plea. Simon laughed. He assured the judge that he already lived in a violent world in prison and couldn't be coerced. "I can I 1.1.1 mm m-i SABINA LOUISE PIERCE DAILY NEWS A corrections officer waits outside the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton yesterday.