Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 3

star Casper Area Sunday, January 19, 1992 Star-Tribune, Casper, Wyo. A3 Governor unwilling to witness execution Anderson, Call agree to attend if included in Hopkinson's final choices Ml to do that, then I must not really be in favor of capital punishment." "I almost look at it as a contradiction if I would say no," Call said. Hays said Amnesty wanted to approach legislators who "were thoughtful" and perhaps "on the fence" on the death penalty issue. If they witness the execution, Hays said, they will realize that the death penalty does not "do any good," and convey that message to their colleagues. Hays said the legislators contacted were "all, without exception, incredibly thoughtful." Legislators who were asked to be included on the list and who could be reached by the Star-Tribune Saturday said they could not witness the execution due to other legislative or professional duties.

Sen. Jim Geringer, R-Platte, said he has no philosophical objections to witnessing the execution, but that as chairman of the Joint Appropriations Committee, he felt he could not meet the scheduling requirements. The JAC is in the middle of budget hearings. Rep. Harry Tipton, R-Fremont, said he declined due to a "pressure of time." "It's scheduled for the day that I have a very full day of surgery," explained Tipton, who is a doctor, "and the day before I spend the day in Jackson and Dubois and don't usually get home until 7 or 8 o'clock at night." Tipton added that he is "not opposed" to the death penalty, but that alternatives such as life without chance of parole is a "viable idea." Sen.

Gary Yordy, R-Albany, said he declined because of reapportionment hearings being held in the state, one of which is in Rock Springs Tuesday night. "The other reason," Yordy said, "is, as I told (Hays), the experience nation-wide on these things is that there are last-minute stays and so on and so forth, and because of all the time that I put in and am currently putting in on reapportionment, I still have to work. I have to be back in my office Wednesday morning." Yordy added that he thinks it is "necessary" to have the death penalty on the books, but that it may not be appropriate in Hopkin By HUGH JACKSON Star-Tribune staff writer CASPER Two Wyoming state representatives have agreed to be included on a list of possible witnesses to the Wednesday execution of Mark Hopkinson, but Gov. Mike Sullivan has declined, according to the Amnesty International spokesman who helped compile the list. Hopkinson may have up to ten people present to witness the execution.

The condemned man has changed the list several times already in recent days, and the prison has not released his final selection, said Amnesty International spokesman Rick Hays. Hays said Hopkinson designated him to compile the list of potential witnesses. As governor, Sullivan has the authority to stay Hopkinson's execution. He has repeatedly said that barring "unforeseen extenuating circumstances," he will not stop the execution. Sullivan Saturday said "1 think it's obvious" why he declined to witness the execution.

"I don't think it's appropriate," he said, declining to comment further. Hays said Sullivan was asked to be included on the list because "he's pulling the trigger long-distance and we figured he should watch the results of his actions, but he doesn't have the courage of his convictions," Hays said. Reps. Susan Anderson, R-Natrona, and Gene Call, R-Lincoln, were the only two of ten legislators Amnesty approached who agreed to be included on the list, Hays said. Rep.

Carroll Miller, R-Big Horn, said he would be willing to be included on the list if no other legislators agreed, Hays said. Anderson said Saturday "I'm at least partly in support of the death penalty and I think if I'm going to take a position that could cost a person their life I should be willing to witness it if he asks me to," Anderson said. Call expressed much the same sentiment Saturday. "My own opinion, I think, is in favor of capital punishment," Call said. "If I'm going to take that position, it would seem to me that if I'm asked to witness, and I'm not even willing son case.

Gerry Spcncc, the special prosecutor who successfully sought the death penalty in the Hopkinson case, is "such a tremendous attorney in front of a jury it may be that he did his job too well and justice got skewed," said who is a lawyer. i "But I don't know that," Yordy was quick to add. "It's just a certain uncase that I Sen. Lisa Kinney, D-Albany, said she was also approached by Amnesty International to witness the execution the last time Hopkinson was scheduled to die, in 1990. She said she declined then because she thought Amnesty was looking for people who; were against the death penalty.

She supports it, she said. She explained that her conversation with Hays this year essentially was confined to Hays asking her if she had changed her mind. She told him she had not, and declined to be a witness, Kinney said. "1 don't feel a need" to witness the execution, she added, and said she was not sure if there was any point in a legislator's attendance at the execution. Other legislators who declined to be included on the list of possible witnesses, but could not be reached for comment Saturday, included Reps.

Eli Bebout, D-Fremont, and Guy Cameron, D-Laramie, and Sen. John Perry, R-Campbcll-Johnson. Secretary of State Kathy Karpan was also asked to be included on the list, and was also unavailable for comment Saturday. Hays, meanwhile, said he will be a witness, as will Episcopal Rev. Warren Murphy of Cody.

Included on the list are attorneys who have worked with Hopkinson, and friends. Hays said. State law allows only prison officials, two physicians, the prisoner's spiritual advisor and the prison chaplain, the sheriff of the county in which Hopkinson was convicted. Members of the press will also witness the execution, at Hopkinson's request. Hays said.

State law does not provide for media witnesses at the execution unless the prisoner requests them. Bill WillcoxStar-Tribune Hopkinson spoke with rejwrters Friday ill Rawlins Free HIV tests to foe offered For 1 1 9, W'mim 1 f. V'- 5 it Ni hi VI A I v-v it L-n '1 'i 1 i) r'n CASPER Free, anonymous testing for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) will be offered at Wyoming Health Department counseling sites in Casper and Cheyenne as part of a new study, the department has announced. The study will be conducted over a six-month period to determine if more Wyoming people will get themselves tested for HIV if their fear of being identified is removed, the release said. The Pathfinder in Cheyenne and the Casper-Natrona County Health Department have been chosen for the study, which will be conducted from Feb.

1 to July 31, the release said. The figures for those six months will be compared to the volume of individuals tested for HIV during the same six-month periods in 1988 through 1991. "In the face of a disease that has no cure, and which increases on a daily basis, the WDH wants to be certain that every possible approach is tried in our effort to stem the inroads made by the virus," said Terry Foley, HIVAIDS prevention program manager. For information or to make an Bill WillcoxSlar-Tribune Warren and Dawn Foreman start a blindfold race Saturday at the Casper Snowmobilers Association Poker Ride, during which the snowmobilers took breaks from snowmobiling in the sunny skies to play a few hands of poker. Even sunnier skies and warmer weather are predicted for tomorrow.

Snow folind appointment, call 235-9280 in Casper or 635-0258 in Cheyenne. and I am a representative of them," Call said. "I don't always vote with constituents, but in this one I'm reassured by what they say." Call, also a Mormon, said his reading of Mormon religious doctrine leads him to believe the death penalty "is very much in line with Church policy." He said, however, he hasn't "seen anything that says the (Mormon church) promotes the death penalty." Call said advocates of the death penalty himself included should be willing to witness executions. State Rep. Eli Bebout, D-Fre-mont, said he is "totally in favor of the death penalty." "When people commit these heinous crimes, and go before a jury of their peers, and that jury comes back with the sentence of death I support that wholeheartedly," Bebout said.

"I don't have a lot of sympathy for convicted murderers." Bebout said he gets "real concerned with the length of time involved in the appeals process" and "the cost to the taxpayers in Wyoming" that the delays and court procedures incur. "We need to figure out how to get that system through quicker, and get it done properly and more efficiently," Bebout said. "It needs to be done fairly soon after the verdict There should be a reasonable amount of time for appeals, but 12 years is not reasonable. Six months is too short. Maybe a year or two, something like that But I don't know that you can legislate that." On the question of capital punishment as a deterrent to commission of violent crime, Bebout said he has "not been convinced one way or another" of the effectiveness of the death sentence in curbing crime.

Samp disputes cost figures typically supplied by opponents of the death penalty in an effort to convince the public of its useless-ness. "The figures most people give are false," Samp said. "They point to the long appeals process that people go through and they say, Gee, it costs so much money to put these people to death, it's more expensive than allowing them to stay in jail for But what they don't take into account is that people who are in jail for life also file all these endless appeals You're still going to have these same costs." Samp conceded that it may be "marginally" more expensive to impose a death sentence rather than life imprisonment, but not much. Continued from Al sentences in 1979 for ordering the 1977 bombing deaths of Evanston attorney Vincent Vehar, his wife, and his son. At the same trial he received the death penalty reversed once by the Wyoming Supreme Court and reinstated by a another jury in 1982 for ordering the murder of Bridger Valley resident Jeff Green, scheduled to testify in the Vehar bombings.

Green's actual killers have never been apprehended, though the 1 982 jury that gave Hopkinson the death sentence was informed that the arrest of two suspected actual killers was imminent. Rep. Ron Micheli, R-Uinta, said "a price must be paid for heinous crimes, but revenge may be too strong a word." Micheli said his membership in the Mormon Church is "obviously an important part of my life" and that "Biblical citations" call for capital punishment. "The Bible obviously says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," Micheli said. "There should be some kind of victim's right to have something in return for that which was taken from him." Micheli admits that "any deterrent is certainly lost when you go through the inevitable court appeals that continue on and on." The death penalty would be "a greater deterrent if it were not so drawn out." Micheli said he attended high school with Hopkinson, and called the condemned man's life a "tragedy." "He had so much ability to influence people," Micheli recalled.

"If only he could have used that for good purposes, there would have been endless possibilities." Micheli said because he knows members of the Hopkinson family well, he would "rather not comment" on whether Hopkinson should be put to death. Micheli bemoaned the "hundreds of thousands of dollars, all out of taxpayers' money that are spent defending criminals." "I do think there must be some limit in regard to public financing of defending of criminals," Micheli said. "There should be some limit to the endless appeals we go through. If they want to spend their own money, that's fine." One legislator, Rep. Gene Call, R-Lincoln, said he has "spent a lot of time" examining his beliefs, and has read two books against the death penalty.

But he said that if "called upon to vote" he would still favor capital punishment. "My constituents feel that way Veterans cemetery upkeep strapped for funds By JOAN BARRON ing water from the City of But the cost is $4,000 per month cemetery in the future when more cemetery in the future when more in the summer and $200 per month in the winter, said Cemetery Di Evansville, and the need tor additional permanent staff. Wing, whose department took over the cemetery from the Department of Commerce, a year ago, said water from wells on the site is filled with chemicals which damages trees and bushes and blackened the concrete. For this reason, he said, officials decided to get water for the cemetery from the Town of Evansville. Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE Oregon Trail Veterans Cemetery near Evansville will need more money in the future in order to get landscaping and expand the chapel, Major General Charles J.

Wing said Friday. The Adjutant General told the Appropriations Committee that the cemetery has two major problems the tremendous cost of obtain money is available. He said many volunteers work at the cemetery but permanent staff is essential to field calls concerning burial arrangements for veterans. The number of interments for veterans is expected to increase nationally in the 1990's and at the park, officials wrote in the budget document. The document does not say how many burials were performed at the cemetery last year.

rector Bert Widmer. "It's tough to grow grass on a sand dune but that's what we're doing," Widmer said. Gov. Mike Sullivan is recommending $244,757 for the cemetery for 1993-94, all of it state General Fund money, and two full-time and one part-time employee. Wing said he met with the governor who asked for a plan for the Eight sentenced in Casper for drinldng, driving Vincent Rosty, 30, received a 60-day jail sentence, with 53 days suspended, was fined $770, with $200 suspended, was placed on unsupervised probation for six months, and was ordered to reccivf counseling and pay $50 into the Victims Compensation Fund for drunken driving.

Harold Joseph Sims, 53, was fined $120, was placed on unsupervised probation for six months, and was ordered to pay $50 into the Victims Compensation Fund for drunken driving. suspended, and was ordered to receive counseling and pay $50 into the Victims Compensation Fund for drunken driving. Donald Lee Nuzum 23, was allowed to defer entering a plea to a charge of drunken driving if he successfully completes six months of unsupervised probation, pays $350 to the Wyoming Victims Assistance Program, and receive counseling. If those terms are complied with, then Nuzum can petition the court to have the drunken driving charge dismissed. Compensation Fund, after pleading guilty to alcohol-related careless driving, amended from an original charge of drunken driving.

Andy R. Simmons, 31, was fined $760, with $200 suspended, and was ordered to receive counseling and pay $50 into the Victims Compensation Fund after pleading guilty to drunken driving. In Natrona County Court, Scott G. Warner, 20, was placed on unsupervised probation for six months, was fined $570, with $200 CASPER Eight people were recently sentenced for drinking and driving, court records show. In Municipal Court, Bob Dean Nuzum, 64, received a suspended 10-day jail sentence, was fined $760, with $200 suspended, and was ordered to receive counseling and pay $50 into the Victims Compensation Fund.

Cindy L. Keeley, 29, and James A. Knott 34, were fined $760, with $200 suspended, and were ordered to receive counseling and pay $50 into the Victims.