Inmate 'prepared' to die for killings

Paul Hill, condemned to die next week for the murders of a Fernandina Beach abortion doctor and his escort, is at peace with his execution and hopes it will save thousands of unborn babies, his spiritual adviser said yesterday.

"He's totally prepared. His resolve is as intense as it ever has been," said the Rev. Donald Spitz, a Virginia pastor who met with Hill for about two hours yesterday afternoon in Hill's Death Row prison cell in Starke. "He hopes that the ultimate result is that more babies will be saved."

Also yesterday, some activists in the anti-abortion and anti-death penalty movements joined forces to oppose Hill's execution.

"He stands in our eyes as little more than a political prisoner," Troy Newman, director of Operation Rescue West, told Florida journalists during a teleconference.

Hill, a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, fatally shot physician John B. Britton of Fernandina Beach and retired Air Force Lt. Col. James H. Barrett of Pensacola in July 1994 outside a Pensacola abortion clinic. He has said the murders were justified.

His execution is scheduled at 6 p.m. Sept. 3, and a large gathering of anti-death penalty and anti-abortion protesters is expected.

Jacksonville Citizens for a Moratorium are scheduled to conduct a candlelight vigil at 4:45 p.m. Sept. 3 at the Duval County Courthouse, 325 E. Bay St., to protest the execution of Paul Hill.

Hill, 50, would be the first person in the United States executed for murdering an abortion doctor. He views himself as a martyr and has refused all attempts to appeal his sentence.

His scheduled execution has generated threatening letters to Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, two prison officials and the judge who sentenced Hill. Each letter contained a bullet.

Gov. Jeb Bush, an abortion opponent who signed Hill's death warrant in July, has downplayed the threats and has said the execution will go forward as planned.

But it's the threat of more violence that some activists say should give Bush pause to reconsider going through with the execution. Some anti-abortion Internet sites openly invite someone to step forward and take Hill's place, and Hill himself has said repeatedly he hopes his death will inspire more violence against abortion clinics.

"He did the right thing," Spitz said. "He should be rewarded."

Abraham Bonowitz, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said executing Hill is playing into his hands.

"Paul Hill becomes more famous, and his message is trumpeted even louder," Bonowitz said.

The Florida Catholic Conference also has condemned what Hill did but is opposed to the death penalty.

Newman and Joe Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life Action League, said they oppose the execution for different reasons.

In their view, Hill didn't receive a fair trial. The judge prevented Hill from arguing at trial that the killings were justified to save unborn lives, an argument that "very possibly would have touched the hearts of some people on the jury," Scheidler said.

He said Hill's motivations were "wrong but not evil."

"I am not morally opposed to the death penalty," Scheidler said. "But in Paul Hill's case, Paul Hill did something wrong that he thought was right. ... It was not malicious in the sense that he was just trying to kill a doctor. He was doing it to save lives."

Staff writer Paul Pinkham can be reached at (904) 359-4107 or ppinkhamjacksonville.com.