If U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft gets his way, a 32-year-old West Indian will be executed if he’s found guilty in a federal murder trial in Brooklyn.

And Ashcroft seemingly wants the man’s death even though U.S. prosecutors, who report to Ashcroft, believe the case against Emile Dixon should not be tried as a federal capital offence.

But legal experts aren’t only worried that Dixon may be innocent of killing Robert Thompson in Brooklyn almost three years ago. They are concerned that his case is part of a disturbing trend: the Justice Department in general and Ashcroft in particular are ordering local federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in cases involving Blacks and Hispanics.

As a matter of fact, none of the defendants in any of the 12 cases in the New York and Connecticut region in which the Attorney General wants the death penalty are white. Eight of them, including Dixon, are Black and the other four are Hispanic, raising the troubling question: Is race playing a role in Ashcroft’s decision, or is it a coincidence?

Across the country, the picture isn’t much better. Information provided by the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project shows that Ashcroft ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in 28 cases. Nineteen of the defendants are Black, five are Hispanic, one is Native American, only two are white and one is of Asian ancestry.

An NAACP attorney George Kendall called it an “odd occurrence” that all of the defendants in capital cases in New York and Connecticut are members of minority groups. He contends the Justice Department’s decisions in these cases support the concerns that “racial bias is influencing the administration of the federal death penalty.”

But Kendall is not alone in raising eyebrows about the pattern.

“What the Attorney General is doing raises serious questions as to whether he is creating or exacerbating a pattern of discrimination in the application of the federal death penalty,” said Ronald Tabak, cochairman of a panel set by the American Bar Association to look at the death penalty.

But the Justice Department disagrees.

For one thing, they say, the Attorney General decides without knowing the ethnic background of the defendants. For another, he is merely concerned about the merits of the case, not the racial backgrounds of people. Thirdly, Ashcroft is seeking to ensure that there is a uniform standard in the application of the death penalty laws.

“He is reviewing the law and the facts of the cases, so it’s entirely race neutral in terms of how it’s reviewed by the Attorney General,” said Barbara Comstock, a Justice Department official.

The case involving the West Indian is worrying many people inside and outside the legal profession, because Ashcroft seems to have gone out of his way to force prosecutors to seek the death penalty, despite the fact that a key prosecution witness was caught lying to federal investigators.

According to prosecutors, Dixon shot and killed Thompson in a drive-by shooting on Linden Boulevard. The killing may have been linked to a gang feud over turf.

The problem for Dixon was that the dead man was to be a star witness in the trial of another man, Humphrey Stewart, who was charged with attempting to kill Thompson a year earlier. That shooting was also linked to a quarrel over drug territory.

For allegedly killing a witness, Dixon must face a federal murder charge. Stephen Thompson, who was in a minivan when his brother was killed, survived gun shot wounds and is now due to testify against Dixon.

But prosecutors were reluctant to seek the death penalty because Thompson first insisted that he couldn’t identify the killer. He later changed his tune, telling a grand jury that he actually saw Dixon fire the shots. Later, he said that he never really saw Dixon in the car before his brother was killed.

When confronted with the inconsistencies, Thompson is said to have admitted that he hadn’t told the truth because he was trying to bring Dixon to trial.

Although these statements go to the heart of Thompson’s credibility as a witness, Ashcroft overruled local federal prosecutors when they recommended against seeking the death penalty.

The Attorney General’s order goes against accepted wisdom in legal circles―that the death penalty should only be sought in airtight cases when there is no doubt about the credibility of witnesses.

Stated another way, the taking of a person’s life requires “proof to a moral certainty” and if an important witness is found to be lying then capital punishment should be avoided out of fear that an innocent man can end up on death row.

The inconsistencies in Thompson's evidence may provide Dixon’s attorneys with a good opportunity to defend the Jamaican but the Attorney General’s action has people asking why?

In the end, though, a judge or jury will decide the matter of guilt or innocence in all of the cases.

A judge can decide that the prosecution has gone too far and can decide to weaken the case and a jury can decide to acquit.