The Daily Spectrum from Saint George, Utah • 10

221 Tuesday, May 9, 2006 The Spectrum Daily News OBITUARIES NATION Senate defeats bill to cap medical liability jury By LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON Senate Democrats on Monday blocked Republican medical malpractice legislation during the GOP's opening session of a "health week" of proposals designed win support from conservative voters if not passage. The dispatch of a pair of bills to cap the amount of damages juries can award in medical malpractice cases has been expected since last week. The roll calls fell well short of the 60 votes Metcalf OR St. George, Mesquite, Logandale (435) 673-4221 Don Woolsey, Jr. -Graveside: May 9, 10 a.m., Washington City Cemetery, 300 Park View Washington, UT.

-Visitations: a.m., prior to the services, both at Metcalf Mortuary, 288 W. St. George St. George. Weston Workman -Funeral: May 9, 8 p.m., Metcalf Mortuary, 288 W.

St. George Blvd. -Visitation: 6-8 p.m., prior to the services at the mortuary. -Graveside: May 10, 2 p.m., South Jordan City Cemetery, South Jordan, UT. Angela Sanossian -Funeral: May 12, 2 p.m., Metcalf Mortuary, 288 W.

St. George St. George, UT. Visitation: p.m., prior to services at the mortuary. Clement Broderick -Funeral: May 13, 10 a.m., St.

George LDS 5th Ward Chapel, 85 S. 400 E. -Visitations: p.m., Metcalf Mortuary, 288 W. St. George Blvd.

and a.m., prior to services at the 5th Ward Chapel. Talmage Christensen -Funeral: May 15, 11 a.m., St. James LDS Ward, James Ln. -Visitations: 5-7 p.m., Metcalf Mortuary, 288 W. St.

George Blvd. and 10:30 a.m., prior to services at the St. James Ward Chapel. Boulevard Construction All main access driveways on 300 W. and one on 200 N.

will remain open during the Boulevard construction. Republicans needed to advance the bill. President Bush said he was disappointed by the Senate's failure to act "on this national problem that deserves a national solution." "Unwilling to take on their to trial-lawyer supporters, the Democrats led this effort to block these much-needed reforms," Bush said in a written statement issued hours after the votes. Republicans forced votes on the bills to demonstrate the GOP's commitment to fighting what Majority Leader Bill Frist called a "litigation lottery." "It really boils down to the fact that health care dollars should be spent on patients and not on lawyers who are out abusing the system," said Frist, R- Tenn. Democrats have dismissed the bills as a boon to the insurance industry and an election-year effort by majority Republicans struggling against low poll numbers to maintain control of Congress.

They said other bills, such as federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, should be brought up during the GOP's "health week." "I I guess we're going to have bills that excite the political base," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Sponsored by Sen. John Ensign, the first bill, rejected 48-42, would have capped punitive and pain and suffering judgments against a physician or health care professional at $250,000. It also would have allowed patients to be awarded up to $250,000 against one health care institution.

Judgments against more than one institution would be capped at $750.000. Southern Utah Mortuary "A Tradition of Trust" (435) 586-4040 www.sumfamily.com John Michael Jenson Graveside Services: Tuesday May 9, 2006 at 2:00 p.m. at Cedar City Cemetery Visitations: Tuesday May 9, 2006 from 11:30 to 12:30 p.m. at Southern Utah Mortuary Interment: Cedar City Cemetery Anna Sherie Helquist Sorensen Funeral Services: Friday May 12, 2006 at 1:00 p.m. at the Cedar 8th Ward Chapel Visitations: Thursday May 11, 2006 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

at Southern Utah Mortuary, and also on Friday May 12, 2006 from 11:00 to 12:30 p.m. at the Cedar 8th Ward Chapel. Interment: Cedar City Cemetery Metcalf MORTUARY VALUE St. George 435-673-4221 www.metcalfmortuary.com HEIDEMAN MORTUARY "Helping You Share The Memories" 170 South Mall Drive, St. George Utah 84790 435-627-0691 224716 "Paid too much for your hearing aids?" Coo Intermountain Audiology and Hearing Clinics "Always the highest quality, always the best value, Guaranteed!" 688-2456 CALL FOR A FREE HEARING SCREENING Moussaoui says he lied about By MICHAEL J.

SNIFFEN Associated Press ALEXANDRIA, Va. Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui says he lied on the witness stand about being involved in the terrorist plot and wants to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial. The judge turned him down. Moussaoui said he was "extremely surprised" that he was sentenced to life i in prison instead of execution and now believes he can get a fair trial from an American jury.

In a motion filed Monday, Moussaoui said he testified on March 27 that he was supposed to hijack a fifth plane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House "even though I knew that was a complete fabrication." A federal court jury spared the 37-year-old Frenchman the death penalty last Wednesday. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema gave him six life sentences, to run as two consecutive life terms, in the federal supermax prison at Florence, Colo. As she handed down the sentence, Brinkema told Moussaoui that he could appeal the life term but that she doubted he would win.

"I believe it would be an act of futility," she said. The judge also pointed out that, although he could appeal the sentence, he had lost his right to appeal his conviction when he pled guilty in April 2005. "You waived that right," she said. On Monday, Brinkema said his request to set aside his guilty plea and go back to trial on the facts of the case was "too late" under federal rules and must be rejected. Explaining his latest reversal, Moussaoui said in an affidavit: "I had thought would be Moussaoui sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept.

11. But after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors." Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers told the court that they filed the motion even though a federal rule "prohibits a defendant from withdrawing a guilty plea after imposition of sentence." They did so anyway, they said, because of their "problematic relationship with Moussaoui" and the fact that new lawyers have yet to be appointed to replace them. The defense lawyers were not immediately available for comment Monday. Brinkema said they would be replaced after they filed any appeal Moussaoui might want. The motion said Moussaoui told his lawyers Friday that he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea because when he entered it his "understanding of the American legal system was completely flawed." In an attached three-page affidavit, Moussaoui cited his new opinion of American jurors and wrote that he now believes he has a fair chance "to prove that I did not have any knowledge of and was not a member of the plot to hijack planes and crash them into buildings on Sept.

11, 2001." "I wish to withdraw my guilty plea and ask the court for a new trial to prove my innocence of the Sept. 11 Moussaoui wrote. "I never met (lead hijacker) Mohammed Atta and, while I may have seen a few of the hijackers (in Afghanistan), I never knew them' or anything about their operation." Explaining his twists and turns, Moussaoui said, "Solitary confinement made me hostile toward everyone, and I began taking extreme positions to fight the system." Moussaoui said that, coupled with his inability to get a Muslim lawyer, led him to distrust his lawyers when they told him he could be convicted of being an al-Qaida member but acquitted of involvement in Moussaoui wrote that he pleaded guilty because he mistakenly thought the Supreme Court would immediately review his objection to being denied the opportunity to call captured enemy combatant witnesses to buttress his claim of not being involved in the plot. An appeals court agreed with the government that national security would be at risk if captured operatives like mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed testified or were even questioned by Moussaoui's lawyers. Instead, statements taken from their interrogations were read to the jury.

Shaikh Mohammed's statements said Moussaoui was never considered for the plot, only a later attack. Moussaoui shocked the courtroom at his sentencing trial when he recanted his fouryear-old claim of having nothing to do with When he pleaded guilty in 2005, he had explained that he was to hijack a 747 jetliner and fly it into the White House at some later date if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik who is serving a life term for terrorist acts in New York. But when he testified, Moussaoui claimed that the 747 was to be a fifth plane hijacked on Sept. 11 and that Richard Reid, now imprisoned for a December 2001 shoe bombing attempt aboard a trans-Atlantic flight, was to be on his hijacking team. That testimony revived the government's flagging case in the first part of the sentencing trial.

On April 3, the jury found Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty. It apparently accepted prosecutors' arguments that by withholding information from federal agents who arrested him on Aug. 16, 2001, he bore responsibility for at least one death on by preventing the agents from identifying and stopping some hijackers. Nevertheless, the same jury was unable to unanimously find that Moussaoui, who was in jail on deserved execution. Three jurors wrote on the verdict form that they doubted he knew much about the plot.

No-confidence vote for Gallaudet president By DERRILL HOLLY Associated Press WASHINGTON The newly chosen president of Gallaudet University, the nation's only liberal arts college for the deaf, received a no-confidence vote from faculty Monday in a dispute that she said comes down to whether she is "deaf enough" for the job. The vote, which passed 93-43, is nonbinding. The fate of Jane K. Fernandes rests with the board of trustees, which has said it will not alter its decision to hire her. Fernandes, who was selected by the board of trustees last week and is scheduled to take office next January, was born deaf but grew up speaking and did not learn American Sign Language until she was 23.

Sign language is the preferred way of communicating at Gallaudet. Dozens of students and alumni waited outside as the voting took place, and some cheered and shouted when the vote was announced. "If the board ignores the facul- SWINDLEHURST FUNERAL HOME "Southern Utah's Most Affordable Choice" David Anderson Services Pending 435- 867-5566 2113 North Main Suite Cedar City ty, they ignore the entire university," said Anthony Mowl, a spokesman for a group opposed to Fernandes. The English major from Fishers, graduates this week. Fernandes, 49, who declined to be interviewed after the vote, said earlier she is caught in a cultural debate.

"There's a kind of perfect deaf person," said Fernandes, who described that as someone who is born deaf to deaf parents, learns ASL at home, attends deaf schools, marries a deaf person and has deaf children. "People like that will remain the core of the university." Fernandes is married to a retired Gallaudet professor who can hear. So can the couple's two children. Some people who were deaf at birth can learn to speak through intensive speech therapy. Fernandes was named to succeed I.

King Jordan, who in 1988 became the first deaf president of Gallaudet since the school was founded by Congress in 1864. He got the job after student protesters marched to the Capitol demanding a "Deaf President Now" fol- Hurricane Valley Mortuary (435) 635-2454 Brian Floyd -Memorial: May 9, 11:00 a.m. Hurricane Valley Mortuary, 140 N. Main Hurricane It makes sense. Advance Funeral Planning (435) 673-2454 SPILSBURY MORTUARY 224696 SOUTHERN HOSPICE UTAH HOSPICE CARE Hospice offers choices and honors your wishes.

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Jordan, who backed Fernandes' selection, said the current protest reflects "identity politics" and a refusal to accept change. "We are squabbling about what it means to be deaf," he said. Deaf education has been roiled in recent years. by the development of cochlear implants and other technology. Some say such developments threaten sign language and other aspects of what they call deaf culture; others welcome such advances.

The demonstrators demanded that the trustees reopen the selection process, with some complaining that Jordan had undue influence over the appointment of Fernandes, currently the school's provost. Others have complained that the process was not diverse enough, since all three candidates were white, and that Fernandes is not respected on campus. Jordan said that the selection of a president is not a "popularity contest" and that this movement should not be compared to the one that swept him into office. If the board gives in, he said, it would be dangerous for the governance of the school. Gunman kills one officer, wounds two others in Washington By ASHTON WILLIAMS A female detective died at a hos- Associated Press CHANTILLY, Va.

-A gunman opened fire outside a suburban Washington police station Monday, killing one officer and wounding two others before he was shot and killed by police, authorities said. SPILSBURY MORTUARY Lee Robert Waldvogel -Services Pending 435-673-2454 St. George Hurricane Mesquite pital after the shooting, said police Chief David Rorher, who did not identify the woman, a nine-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department. A second officer was in serious condition and undergoing surgery late Monday. A third was treated for minor injuries from flying glass or a ricocheting bullet.

Authorities did not disclose a motive or the gunman's name. "It's going to be unraveling slowly," police spokeswoman Mary Ann Jennings said. "We don't have a clue at this point. I'm sure some of the investigators are starting to put that together." Fairfax County police officer Rich Henry said the gunman opened fire during mid-afternoon in a back parking lot at the Sully District Station..