“I would rather she be executed”
Convicted ex-officer appears in court
Judge delays ruling on killer’s execution
The Times-Picayune
Thursday, February 28, 2008
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
Former police officer Antoinette Frank returned to an Orleans Parish courtroom Wednesday morning, almost 13 years after a jury condemned her to die by lethal injection for a 1995 rampage that left three people dead at a local Vietnamese restaurant.
Prosecutors and the relatives of one victim gathered with the expectation that the state court would issue an order for Frank’s execution.
But Criminal District Judge Frank Marullo, who presided over her trial and set Wednesday’s hearing, postponed the matter after meeting with Frank’s appellate attorneys. At issue is Frank’s recent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Feb. 19 refused to review her death sentence.
Frank’s attorneys have 25 days from that ruling to ask for a rehearing. Marullo rescheduled Wednesday’s status hearing for April 14.
Separate juries found that Frank and Rogers Lacaze orchestrated an ambush on the Kim Anh restaurant in eastern New Orleans in 1995 and deserve execution for gunning down New Orleans Police Department officer Ronald Williams and siblings Ha and Cuong Vu.
Williams, 25, had worked with Frank in 1995 when she was a 23-year-old NOPD rookie officer moonlighting at Kim Anh for security details. Williams’ family filled the front row in Marullo’s courtroom Wednesday.
Father awaits closure
Williams’ father said he is frustrated with the criminal justice system but will continue to closely follow Frank’s appeals in the hopes that the state will execute her for the triple murder that rocked New Orleans and became the nadir for the long-troubled Police Department.
Frank, 36, had failed parts of the psychological exams needed to enter the police academy and should never have been issued a badge and gun, the public learned only after the Kim Anh murders.
“I would rather she be executed, then I wouldn’t have to see her in court again,” said Ronald Williams, the father of the slain officer. “It’s frustrating not being able to get this closed out. The system is so cumbersome. That’s part of what makes the justice system ineffective.”
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