The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 5

Tuesday, September 16, 1997 A-5 SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER STORM-WHIPPED WAVES Iaiiyrs attach dearith' enaKy- arbitrarily and capriciously, in vio Kr; v. V.A i irf Man found guilty of kidnapping girl Redwood City a jury has found a Southern California man guilty in the kidnapping of a 9-year-old Hillsborough girl two years ago. Jurors deliberated for less than an hour Monday before convicting John Paul Balocca, 21, for his part in a plot to kidnap Kristine Chiu in December 1995. She was held for 10 hours for $800,000 ransom before she was safely released at San Francisco International Airport. Her kidnappers never got their money.

The first trial ended in a hung jury two months ago with one juror saying the defendant was merely a "tool" used by two conspirators who had disappeared shortly after the kidnapping. In the second trial, Balocca admitted to kidnapping Kristine as she returned home from school in exchange for a payment. He testified that he believed the two men who had hired him wanted the girl's father to repay a debt. Balocca was being held on $1 million bail. He faces a life in prison with possibility of parole at sentencing Nov.

4. Moscone Center expansion grows San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown said the expansion of the Moscone Center would be even bigger than earlier estimates 94,000 square feet bigger. In a joint announcement with the Deparment of Public Works, Brown said a new Moscone facility at the corner of Fourth and Howard streets would now have nearly 300,000 square feet of exhibit and meeting space. City officials have said expanding the center is critical to maintaining Mosco-ne'B reputation as a "first-class" convention facility. The proposed structure will be paid for mostly by a 2 percent hotel tax.

The entire project, which was previously estimated to cost $400 million, also requires approval of a $157.5 million revenue bond issue, which will go before voters in QENE BLEVINSLOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS VIA AP A monster wave caused by the effects of Hurricane Linda crashes onto the shore Monday at Newport Overuse of antibiotics is nothing to sneeze at Beach, where tackle the big given to adults, the study said. The difficulty in halting the practice rests largely on "unrealistic patient expectations, coupled with insufficient time to discuss with patients why an antibiotic is not needed," Benjamin Schwartz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in an accompanying editorial. He also blamed inadequate knowledge among some physicians. Patients with colds must understand that coughs can persist for 10 Ride crashes at fair, ASSOCIATED PRESS MEXICO CITY A mechanical ride crashed to the ground at a fair in northern Coahuila state, injuring at least 40 people. The ride which lifts seats on rotating arms more than a dozen feet off the ground fell in crowded fairgrounds Monday in the town lation of the Eighth Amendment," the motion states.

The law so loosely restricts the kind of evidence that can be pres ented in the sentencing phase of trial that "it permits a sentence of death without even the circum stantial guarantees of accuracy" embodied in federal rules of evidence, the lawyers argue. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Lapham pointed out that the law has successfully been used in a handful of capital cases, including that of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. "Its constitutionality has been upheld," he said. He declined further comment on the motion.

The federal defenders argue that the grand jury that indicted Kaczynski failed to find two elements required by the 1994 federal law to charge him with a capital offense. Those elements involve intent to commit the crimes charged, and at least one of the "aggravating factors" specified by the law. "Thus, the offenses set forth carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment," they argue. On another matter, Clarke and Denvir argue that an attempt by prosecutors to introduce evidence in the main phase of the trial of bombings other than the four for which Kaczynski has been charged in Sacramento would illegally poison juror deliberations on whether their client should live 'or die. "It is unrealistic to expect that a jury that has found a particular act to have occurred under a lower standard of proof in determining guilt would be able to objectively evaluate the evidence under the substantially higher 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard in deciding on sentence," they state.

Therefore, evidence of uncharged crimes should be excluded from the guilt phase of the process, they argue. Explosions attributed to the Unabomber killed three people and injured 23 others between 1978 and 1995. Two of the Unabomber's killings, those of computer store owner Hugh Scrutton in 1985 and timber lobbyist Gilbert Murray in 1995, were in Sacramento. Kaczynski will be tried in November on charges related to those two deaths and two other bombings that, maimed professors Charles Epstein of the University of California, San Francisco, and David Gel-ernter of Yale University in Connecticut. He has been separately charged with a bombing that killed advertising executive Thomas Mosser in New Jersey in 1994.

Vandals deface Atlanta synagogue and center REUTERS ATLANTA Vandals painted Nazi symbols and racial slurs at a synagogue and a Jewish community center over the weekend, authorities said. Acquire basic skills in your new skills in one ot our beginning or One great price includes tuition, book and fees. Groups meet twice a week for 4 weeks. 8-week programs available for just $500. Friendly, relaxed groups of 6-8 students.

Drugs often found to be useless against colds, but can increase future risk REUTERS CHICAGO Doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics for people with colds even though the drugs do no good and may increase the risk that future bacterial infections become resistant to the drugs, researchers said Tuesday. Most colds, upper respiratory tract infections and cases of bronchitis are caused by viruses and taking antibiotics provides "little or no benefit," University of Colorado researcher Ralph Gonzales wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Yet between 50 percent and 70 percent of patients suffering from these common respiratory ail ments were prescribed antibiotics. his study found. In 1992, patients with these ail ments accounted for 12 million drug prescriptions, or about one in five of all antibiotic prescriptions 14 arrested near Headwaters grove ASSOCIATED PRESS FORTUNA, Humboldt County At least 14 people were arrested after they entered Pacific Lumber Co.

property and blocked a road to protest logging in the Headwaters Forest. The arrests occurred Monday on private land just inside the Nu-berg Road gate in Fortuna, about 250 miles north of San Francisco. The site is about four miles from the ancient redwood groves that environmentalists say have been threatened by Pacific Lumber's logging policies. Another Chance Home Loan Unabom suspect's defenders argue that the federal law is flawed, immoral By Cynthia Hubert and Denny Walsh SCRIPPS-MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE SACRAMENTO Federal defenders representing alleged Una-bomber Theodore Kaczynski are making a vigorous and impassioned argument against the death penalty on behalf of their client, arguing that federal law on the matter is legally flawed and patently immoral. In papers filed in U.S.

District Court in Sacramento late Monday, Quin Denvir and Judy Clarke argue that the 1994 federal death penalty law is unconstitutional, and that Americans ultimately will decide that capital punishment is wrong. "Evolving standards of decency will eventually convince the American public that it is simply wrong and immoral to kill people, regardless whether the killing is done by an individual or our government," the lawyers wrote. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno decided in May to allow prosecutors to. seek the death penalty against Kaczynski, 55, who is accused of being the technology hating serial bomber who evaded authorities for nearly two decades.

The motion filed by his lawyers Monday asks U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. to preclude such a sentence. Kaczynski, a former UC-Berke-ley math professor who retreated to the life of a hermit, is scheduled to stand trial in November in Sacramento. If he is convicted of either of the two fatal bombings with which he has been charged, a second phase of the trial will be held to consider whether he should be executed.

Prosecutors have argued that capital punishment is justified because Kaczynski planned and carried out terrorist acts that killed and injured people nationwide. His family, who led the FBI to Kaczynski, has pleaded that his life be spared if he is convicted. In their motion opposing the death penalty, Kaczynski's lawyers argue that the 1994 federal statute is unconstitutional, in part because it is so broad. It allows the government to consider 16 "aggravating" factors as a basis for imposing the death penalty, plus "any other aggravating factor" it chooses. "The statute provides no guidance to prosecutors" in determining how to select those factors, creating "an impermissible risk that the death penalty will be imposed a small break state return the same.

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spectators gathered to watch surfers breakers. days, and resist the inclination to demand prescription drugs, Schwartz wrote. The danger of overprescribing antibiotics is that bacteria that can cause illnesses become resistant to treatment if an infection develops. "The increasing prevalence of resistant organisms has been attributed, at least in part, to high rates of antibiotic prescribing, not all of which is necessary," wrote Margaret Winker, a senior editor at the Journal. injures 40 in Mexico of San Pedro de las Colonias, about 490 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Some of the injured were bystanders on the ground. The most seriously injured included a 12-year-old girl and four 9-year-old children, the government news agency Notimex reported. amsumrruiuKi and is ai.iihhlr rtv iM.ntnw onK. Hawd urxin 10 vcar kmn irti Wan jrmsrot ul in fore rwvr 1 November 1998. If approved, construction on the new structure is expected to begin in early 2000 and end in early 2003.

U.S. court upholds denial of disability San Francisco ibm's denial of disability benefits to a worker stricken with multiple sclerosis was upheld Monday by a divided federal appeals court. The company's health plan administrator was entitled to conclude that Robert Ficalora, a 13-year IBM employee based in Olympia, had failed to show he was completely disabled from working, said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Sketch of suspect in girl's death SANTA ROSA The Sonoma County Sheriffs Department has released a sketch of a man wanted in connect ion with the mysterious death of a 12-year-old Santa Kosa girl.

Sheriffs officials have identified the girl as Georgia Moses, who was last seen Aug. 13. Her body was found on an on-ramp to U.S. 101 in Petaluma Aug. 22.

The girl was last seen walking with an unidentified man at 10 a.m. Aug. 13 near Sebastopol Road and Dutton Avenue. Santa Rosa Police and sheriffs officials are now seeking the man for questioning. He is described as black male, about 25 to 30 years old, 6 feet to 6-foot-2, 4 inches tall, weighing about 200 pounds, with closely cropped black hair.

He was last seen driving a small, white four-door car. Compiled from Examiner staff and wire reports Taxpayers get on next year's ASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO Califor-nians can look forward to three minor changes that will save them money on their 1997 state income tax returns. Tax brackets have been raised by 2.2 percent to offset the effects of inflation, and personal exemptions and standard deductions have been increased by nominal amounts, the Franchise Tax Board announced Monday. The indexing of tax brackets means that taxpayers whose adjusted gross incomes are unchanged between 1996 and 1997 will get small tax cuts. For a couple with taxable income of $40,000, the state income tax will decline by $29 to $1,073.

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