Ronell Wilson was convicted in the Staten Island murder of 2 policemen, and sentenced to death on January 30, 2007. He becomes one of 51 prisoners on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Omar Green, a key prosecution witness in the Ronell Wilson case, seems to be changing his story. According to prosecutors, Green’s earlier story was that Wilson, accused of murdering two undercover NYPD detectives during a gun sting operation, knew when he fired that they might be police officers. Now, prosecutors report, Green says Wilson told him that he shot them because he believed they were going to rob him and his companions. Green, along with two other defendants, cut plea deals with the Staten Island District Attorney in 2003. In a state prosecution, the maximum sentence Wilson could face would be life without parole. But in 2004, just 5 months after the State Court of Appeals overturned New York’s death penalty statute, the Staten Island DA asked the US Attorney to charge Wilson. Attorney General Gonzalez thereupon ordered the US Attorney to seek the death penalty. (See story by Susan Schindler.)

The Ronell Wilson case highlights serious problems with the Federal death penalty system. The system relies heavily on testimony of former friends and associates of defendants who can gain by cooperating with the prosecution. “Forum shopping” for death venues is also not unique to the Wilson case. At the direction of then Attorney General Ashcroft, who overrode federal prosecutors, Donald Fell was tried and convicted in Federal Court in Vermont, which does not have a state death penalty statute, and sentenced to death this past June. John Malvo, 17 at the time of the “Beltway sniper” shootings, was tried in Virginia rather than Maryland, in part, according to CNN, because Virginia had actually executed people for crimes committed at age 16 or 17.