[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 18, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5462-S5463]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE?

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this morning I opened the Washington Post 
newspaper to the Metro Section and saw on page 1 of the Metro Section, 
a headline that says, ``Killer Sent To Wrong Prison After 2nd Murder.'' 
I want to describe this killer and I want to describe what has happened 
in the District of Columbia, because I have spoken about this case, I 
suppose, five or six times on the floor of the Senate over the last 4 
or 5 years.
  First, let me tell you about the man they are talking about, the 
killer. His name is Leo Gonzales Wright. On June 10, 1974, he committed 
a rape and committed a burglary. On June 18, 1976, armed robbery; shot 
a store owner during an armed robbery. February 1, 1976, robbery and 
murder of a cab driver, Joseph Woodbury. Apprehended, incarcerated, 
pled guilty to second degree murder and armed robbery. Released on 
parole some 17 years later. Arrested for cocaine in the District of 
Columbia. Indictment in a drug case, arraigned on the drug charge, 
failed to report for drug testing. Failed to report for drug testing. 
Carjacking and armed robbery of Kristina Keyes. Failed to report for 
drug testing. Carjacking and murder of Bettina Pruckmayr.
  Who is Bettina Pruckmayr? She was a young, 26-year-old human rights 
lawyer. You can't see this picture much. She had just graduated from 
Georgetown, a young woman who one evening was getting into her car and 
this Leo Gonzales Wright abducts here, forces her to drive to an ATM 
machine, and gets her ATM code. She cooperates in every way: gives him 
the PIN number for the ATM machine, says, ``I only have $20 in my 
account,'' and then she tries to run away.
  He follows her and, according to the paper, got angry and decided to 
kill her, this 26-year-old lawyer. He said he was so enraged he stabbed 
her 38 times, plunging the knife into her body with such force that her 
sternum was crushed and many of the wounds, inflicted with a 5.5 inch 
butcher knife, were more than 6 inches deep.
  This young lady, this wonderful young attorney, was killed by someone 
who should not have been able to kill anybody. He was on the streets, 
released early. He had already murdered, was put in prison, but 
released early and then picked up again for an offense and not put back 
in jail. Then he murdered this young woman. So the judge sentenced him, 
and the judge said, when he sentenced him 3 years ago: It is my intent, 
sir, that you will never be released into society again. You, sir, will 
die in jail. This court will do everything in its power to ensure that 
you will never walk the streets of this country or anyplace again.
  That is what the Federal judge said to Leo Gonzales Wright, a double 
murderer, a man with a criminal record as long as my arm, someone who 
should not have been on the streets to murder Bettina Pruckmayr.
  This morning the story in the paper says that, while Judge Sullivan 
ordered this man to be sent to Federal prison 3 years ago, he is not in 
a Federal prison. He has been out here at Lorton in the District of 
Columbia for the last 3 years. In fact, at one point he was given part 
of a day to go home to attend his mother's wake.
  The story talks about the judge's anger. The judge has a right to be 
angry. All of us have a need to be angry. This is gross, utter 
incompetence. I don't know anybody in the criminal justice system in 
the District of Columbia. I don't know anybody there. But there is such 
gross incompetence there it just staggers the imagination.
  I have spoken probably five times on the floor of the Senate about 
this murder, only because it is so reflective of what is wrong in our 
criminal justice system. We know this guy is a murderer. We knew it 
before and society put him in jail, and the parole folks let

[[Page S5463]]

him out early so he could murder again.

  Who is accountable for that? Is somebody going to lose his or her 
job? The last time a Federal judge sent him to Federal prison he didn't 
go. Who is accountable for that? Or he gets to go to his mother's wake, 
this fellow who has murdered twice. Who is accountable for that? Who is 
going to tell the Pruckmayr family: We are sorry. This is just the way 
bureaucracy works.
  It ought not be the way the system works anywhere.
  I want to say to the Mayor of this city and the folks who run the 
criminal justice system in this city, I am not someone who bashes the 
city of the District of Columbia. I have never done that. Some do, but 
I do not. But I say today I am on the Appropriations Committee and you 
are going to pay a price. You are going to pay a price for this gross, 
staggering, incompetence, unless someone is held accountable for this 
kind of nonsense.
  People have the right to expect the streets are safe. People have the 
right to expect that murderers are not walking up and down the streets 
in this country. And in the District of Columbia, at least, they knew 
this fellow was a murderer--he had murdered before, committed armed 
robbery before, committed rape before--only for them to say somehow: We 
decided to put him back on the streets. Then a Federal judge says: I 
want him in Federal prison forever. The District of Columbia cannot 
even get that right.
  We need to understand why. I do not mean this as a threat. I just 
mean it as a promise. They are going to pay a price unless they 
demonstrate to the American people and to this Congress they are 
holding people accountable for this kind of gross negligence and gross 
incompetence.
  I never met Bettina Pruckmayr. I have spoken in the Senate about a 
young 11-year-old boy, I suppose, about a half dozen times as well. 
They found that young boy dead. They found grass and dirt between his 
fingers. He was also killed by a guy who previously had been convicted 
of murder. That young boy was stabbed many times and left for dead in a 
pond, except he was not dead. He tried to crawl his way out. He died at 
the top of the embankment with dirt and grass between his fingers.
  He should never have been murdered. He was murdered by someone we 
knew was a murderer, because he murdered before. But the system said it 
was OK that he be let out of jail.
  The exact same thing is true with this young woman, Bettina 
Pruckmayr. She ought not have died. Her death is on someone's 
conscience. I do not know who it is. Who makes these decisions? Who 
makes the decisions that these killers be turned loose on our streets?
  I have come to the floor today only to ask the question: Who makes 
the decision to say to a Federal judge you may want this person in a 
Federal prison out of society for life, but we have decided 
differently. We will stick him back in Lorton and when his mother dies, 
he can go to the wake.
  Who makes that decision? Who is going to be held accountable for 
this, because this is the same kind of staggering incompetence that led 
to this person's release in the first place, that led to this person 
not being apprehended when he failed a drug test while on parole. It is 
the same staggering incompetence.
  I am saying as one Member of the Senate that when we take a look at 
our obligations and I as an appropriator take a look at our obligations 
to the District of Columbia, I will insist that the mayor and others in 
this system demonstrate to us that they have held people accountable 
for this kind of behavior.
  Too many innocent people die. I have had a piece of legislation in 
the Senate--I have never been able to get it passed and I will never 
quit trying--that says if a unit of government, a city, a State, 
decides they want to let killers out early, time off for good behavior; 
we want to manage you in prison, so we will give you an inducement: If 
you behave in prison we will give you time off. If you commit violent 
crimes and murder, we will let you out early if you are good behind 
bars so you can walk the streets early and commit another crime.
  What I have said is those units of government that decide to let 
people convicted of violent crimes out early, if those people commit a 
violent crime during a period when they would have still been serving 
their sentence in prison, should be held responsible to the victims and 
the victims' families. Yes, that means lawsuits, recompense.
  There ought to be responsibility. Let's find those who are letting 
these folks out of prison and say to them: You be responsible. If you 
want to let them out early, then you bear the consequences.
  Am I upset by reading this story this morning? Yes, I am. Again, I 
did not know this young woman, but I have spoken about her often, and 
many others have, I believe, watched this case with bewilderment, 
wondering who on Earth could be in charge of a system that is so 
fundamentally incompetent, a system that, in my judgment, ultimately 
allowed this person to be free on the streets to kill this young woman, 
a system that now can't even comply with a simple order by a Federal 
judge that this person ought to be in Federal prison forever, never 
again to be released on the streets in this country.
  People of this country deserve better and expect better. Those of us 
in the Congress who have some capability of applying some pressure to 
the people of the District of Columbia to remedy these problems have an 
obligation, it seems to me, to use that leverage to force that to 
happen.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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