Brown and White Vol. 111 No. 45

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 all the lehigh news first vol 11l no 45 friday april 23 2004 hanging on for dear life b&w photo by andrew figzliozzi gamma phi beta sorority members give it their all during monday's tug-of-war competition at greek week opening ceremonies festivities continue today with a date auction at 4 p.m in the kappa sigma parking lot scheck discusses dna testing legal flaws by alladin jaloudi news writer barry scheck renowned attorney and dna expert called on pennsylvania gov ed rendell tuesday evening to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in the state scheck best known for his role on oj simpson's legal dream team made the remarks at packard auditorium during this year's tresolini lecture in law during his speech scheck discussed the flaws of the crimi nal justice system and the merits of dna testing he advocated the use of dna testing to ensure that justice prevails in criminal cases there are more innocent people in american prisons than anyone ever suspected scheck said that is the lesson of dna testing scheck founded the innocence project with peter neufeld in 1992 to help exoner ajte wrongfully convicted indi viduals through the use of dna testing so far the project has helped to exonerate 143 people there are now similar inno cence projects at more than 30 colleges and universities around the country scheck said that his call for a moratorium on the death penal ty is not intended to be a get out-of-jail-free pass instead he feels that all executions must be stopped until the system is tweaked he pointed to his work to illustrate how questionable some murder convictions have been forty percent of people who claimed that dna would exon erate them were right he said scheck said that die debate over capital punishment has shifted from the actual moral issue of whether it is wrong for the government to execute someone to whetfier the punish ment is being practiced fairly reasonable people can dis agree on that moral issue scheck said but that has absolutely nothing to do with the way the death penalty is administered in die u.s through the innocence project not only have innocent people been exonerated but in some cases the real perpetrators have been caught scheck said everytime a person is wrongfully convicted sentenced or god forbid executed die real perpetrator is out there to com mit more crimes scheck told the audience scheck was careful not to attribute all false convictions to the misuse of dna testing one major problem in the criminal justice system that has contributed to the high number of wrongfully-convicted prison ers is a lack of resources and in some cases incompetence on the part of many public defend ers in many places if you put a mirror under their noses and it fogs up - they're competent scheck said nothing guaran tees a wrongful conviction faster than a lawyer who didn't do his job scheck said that 89 percent of those convicted of murder were unable to afford their own legal counsel the system isn't working unless we have a defense bar doing its job he said having lawyers for the poor is good law enforcement to demonstrate his point scheck pointed to the federal court system where public defenders get more adequate funds to defend clients in capital cases in the 25 federal death penalty cases tried since sept 11 2001 22 resulted in life sen tences or better scheck also observed that perjury and false confessions have led to many wrongful con greek residents to move up hill by monica hamrick news writer as soon as students move out of their campus resi dences in may building crews will begin renovation work for the 2004-2005 school year some of the biggest changes are happening at the centennial i buildings or upper centennial complex two of the sororities resid ing there will be moving to new locations alpha omicron pi will be moving v theta delta chi building 107 chi omega will be mov ing to warren square e although no official announcement has been made concerning tdk's future the brown and white has learned that aopi has received blueprints for the tdk house three tdk members including president edward cilli 06 were charged in february for providing false statements to law enforce ment after a 19-year-old female student passed out from excessive alcohol con sumption the student was later hospitalized with a 30 blood alcoh6l level police said the two buildings being left vacant by the sororities i the leavitt and mcconn houses will be used as fresh man dormitories ozzie breiner associate director of residential servic es said the amount of changes from year to year is not atypical renovations took place the past two summers repairs at chi psi fraterni ty required chi psi brothers i to live in warren square a and c this year chi psi president kyle keating 05 said he is look ing forward to moving back into the chi psi house when work is completed keating said he dislikes living in warren square it's miserable compared to the house he said the house renovations became necessary after years , of deterioration keating said see scheck page 2 see changes page 3 baseball team beats lafayette in the ninth inning see story page 16 sports 13 f 16 softball 16 spectrum hosts week to educate campus on issues of sexuality see story page 3 news 1-4 spectrum 3 barry scheck 4 a look at how up organizations at other colleges select programming see story page 5 lifestyle 5-11 on the brink 8 a broad abroad 11 association of student alumni speaker discusses the value of creating partnerships bw.lehigh.edu quick fact people of salt lake city utah eat the most lime flavored jell-0 in the united states source www.amusingfacts.com