Feds Urge Michigan Judge: Don't Put Cloak Over Appeal In Death Penalty Case

GRAND RAPIDS (WWJ/AP) - Federal prosecutors in western Michigan are urging a judge to let the public see recent court filings in a death penalty case.

Attorneys for Marvin Gabrion want to keep a cover on the latest challenge to his death sentence. There might be references to Gabrion's mental health.

In 2002, Gabrion was convicted of killing 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman in the Manistee National Forest in Newaygo County, north of Grand Rapids, back in 1997 before she could testify against him in a rape case. Her body was found bound with chains and cinder blocks in a lake.

Gabrion was sentenced to death, a punishment available for murders prosecuted in federal court. He's still fighting the sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim VerHey says the public isn't served when court filings in a well-known case like Gabrion's are kept secret. It's not known when Judge Robert Holmes Bell will make a decision.

Michigan outlawed the death penalty in 1846. But the victim was killed on federal property, which put the case in federal court and allowed the government to seek the ultimate punishment for Gabrion.

A key part of Gabrion's appeal was that his attorneys were barred from making certain argument to jurors during the sentencing phase in 2002. They couldn't try to sway the jury against death by saying he would only face a life sentence if the trial had been in state court. But the appeals court said Michigan's lack of a certain punishment is not a mitigating factor to argue in a death penalty case.

Prosecutors have blamed Gabrion for the disappearance of four other people, including Timmerman's daughter, Shannon, who was about a year old in 1997. The body of one of the missing, Wayne Davis, was found floating in another lake a few months after the trial. No charges have been filed.

Gabrion, 61, remains on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

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