Tucson, Arizona  Friday, 30 November 2001
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/11130LandriganExecutio.html
By David Kravets
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO - An Arizona inmate who says he is genetically predisposed to kill inched closer to execution when a federal appeals court rejected a challenge to his 1990 murder conviction.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied Jeffrey Landrigan's bid to avoid lethal injection or the gas chamber. Landrigan could be executed as early as next summer unless he is pardoned, the circuit changes its mind or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes - all of which are unlikely.

None of the state's 125 condemned inmates is closer to being executed at the Arizona State Prison in Florence. Arizona has executed 22 inmates since 1973, the year the Legislature reinstated capital punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily outlawed capital punishment a year before.

Landrigan, 37, escaped from an Oklahoma prison in 1989, where he was serving 20 years for murdering an acquaintance. A month later, he murdered Chester Dyer, a homosexual who picked up men on the Phoenix streets by flashing large sums of money.

As they were drinking beer in the victim's Phoenix apartment, Landrigan strangled Dyer with an electrical cord and repeatedly stabbed him with a screwdriver.

In his appeal, Landrigan said his lawyer may have won him a life term instead of a death sentence had he submitted evidence that he was predisposed to violence, said his new lawyer, Dale Baich.

A study of his family history shows many relatives committed violent crimes, including his father who is on Arkansas' death row. But that information was not presented to the judge.

"We are satisfied that the result would not have been affected," the circuit panel wrote.

Baich added that Landrigan's mother constantly drank moonshine when she was pregnant with him.

Combining his family's history of violence and his mother's drinking, "Those factors contributed to making Mr. Landrigan being the way he is. Jeff Landrigan has organic brain damage and should not be executed," Baich said.

Baich said he is considering asking the San Francisco-based appeals court to reconsider its decision. Arizona prosecutors said Landrigan should be executed.

The last Arizona inmate executed was Donald Miller, on Nov. 11, 2000. Miller was condemned for murdering Jennifer Geuder in 1992 as a favor for a friend who did not want to pay her child support.



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