Wyoming`s sole occupant on death row has nearly exhausted his legal options and faces execution early Wednesday morning, an event that would bring to a close a saga of blood and revenge that has played through Wyoming headlines and court system since 1977.
It`s a case in which the man on death row, Mark Hopkinson, is not accused of doing the actual killings and thus is one of particular concern to anti-death penalty crusaders like Amnesty International, which plans to hold a vigil at the Wyoming State Capitol building in Cheyenne when Hopkinson is scheduled to be executed at 12:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. Chicago time).
It`s a case as well in which those who prosecuted the condemned man-including super-lawyer Gerry Spence, who was most recently in the headlines for winning acquital for former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos-were accused of ”egregious” courtroom grandstanding against Hopkinson by the 10th Circuit Appeals Court.
Spence, who for years vowed that he would not rest until Hopkinson was dead, now has sided with Amnesty International in asking that he be spared.
Last week in a prison news conference Hopkinson said that he is not so forgiving toward Spence.
Hopkinson, 42, said that his biggest regret was that Spence wouldn`t be lying alongside him when the fatal injection is administered Wednesday, should his last round of appeals fail.
Leonard Munker, Wyoming`s public defender, said Monday that he will make a final request Tuesday to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay but noted that five other pleas have been rejected.
”Things really look grim for us. I have little hope,” he said.
Court records show that over the past 12 years, Hopkinson has won stays of execution six times, mostly by attacking Spence`s controversial prosecution of his case.
Hopkinson was charged in the 1977 bombing of the home of popular Evanston, Wyo., lawyer Vincent Vehar, who was killed along with his wife, Beverly, and their 17-year-old son, John.
Spence has refused to discuss the case until Hopkinson is executed but in past interviews he has admitted that he had been a close friend of the Vehar family and that he set out on a one-man crusade to bring their killers to justice.
Appointed a special prosecutor, Spence won a conviction and life sentence against Hopkinson in 1979.
Then Jeffrey Green, the key witness who had helped build the earlier case against Hopkinson, was tortured to death at a rest stop alongside Interstate Highway 80 near Evanston. With Spence again as prosecutor, Hopkinson was sentenced to death in 1982 for hiring two assassins to attack Green.
Those two men have never been captured, and Hopkinson and Munker long have maintained that they didn`t exist.
Spence, whose courtroom style includes flamboyant wardrobes, sweeping gestures and down-home rapport with juries, came under severe criticism for his performance at Hopkinson`s trial.
In early 1989, for example, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals called
”egregious” Spence`s practice of wearing bulletproof vests and entering the court room with personal bodyguards and then telling jurors that nobody was safe in a world where Vincent Vehar could be attacked by dynamite.
In his past public statements, Spence has insisted that while he remains convinced Hopkinson killed the Vehars, he no longer believes that the safety of people in Wyoming is at stake if he isn`t executed.
”We`re glad for Mr. Spence`s help,” said Charles Wilton, heading the Amnesty International execution vigil in Cheyenne. ”But, we don`t really see him as Mark`s friend. If it weren`t for Gerry Spence, Mark would not be on the verge of dying.”
