Chicago Murder Case to Test Federal Death Penalty Law : Crime: Two alleged members of a drug ring face charges in the slaying of an informant. A court challenge is expected if the sentence is imposed.

Stepping up the government’s war on drugs, prosecutors said here Thursday they would seek the first test of a controversial 1988 law that established a federal death penalty for certain drug-related murders.

If such a sentence were carried out, it would be the first federal execution since the 1953 electrocution deaths of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were convicted of slipping atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

The announcement came after a federal grand jury charged two members of an alleged South Side heroin and cocaine distribution ring with the 1989 execution-style murder of a government informant.

Under the new law, fiercely criticized by foes of capital punishment and sure to be challenged in court the first time such a sentence is imposed, anyone convicted of murder or ordering a murder while committing a drug-related felony is subject to the death penalty.

Ira H. Raphaelson, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, declined to specify why the government had chosen the Chicago case to test the statute. But he said the government had a special duty to throw the book at anyone who kills an informant in drug cases.

“When insiders in these organizations are murdered because of their cooperative efforts, we have a need to vindicate their efforts,” Raphaelson said. “The message that we’re trying to send is that the drug war is going to be fought at every level. . . . We will not shy away from seeking the ultimate sanction.”

In a statement released in Washington, U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said the murders of inside informants were especially heinous because their cooperation was often key to breaking up drug rings.

“Street-level distribution networks such as the one alleged in this indictment cannot be effectively dismantled without the cooperation of citizen-witnesses,” Thornburgh said.

Jay Miller, executive director of the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, declined comment on the development until he could study the charges. The ACLU is a staunch critic of capital punishment on both the state and federal levels.

The indictments charge Alexander Cooper, 30, the alleged boss of a major drug ring on the South Side of Chicago as well as northwest Indiana, with ordering the Feb. 6, 1989, murder of Robert Parker in order to silence him. According to the charges, Parker was passing information about the ring to investigators.

Also charged with murder is the alleged triggerman, 39-year-old Anthony Davis. Parker’s body was riddled with five bullet holes when it was found, prosecutors said.

Cooper, an ex-garbage collector for the city, has been in federal custody since last year. Prosecutors said his nickname on the street was “Ghost” because he rarely showed up at his legitimate job but still managed to stay on the payroll. Davis, also known as “Future,” is still at large.

The two were originally indicted on drug charges in October along with 19 other people after Chicago police and federal investigators cracked the ring in a series of pre-dawn raids. At the time, then-U.S. Atty. Anton Valukas referred to the ring as a “family affair” and described it as one of the largest continuous drug operations in the Chicago area. Cooper’s mother, two brothers, a sister and a cousin were arrested in the crackdown.

Raphaelson said the ring, which allegedly began selling drugs in 1982, sometimes distributed as much as two kilograms of cocaine and six kilograms of heroin a week and grossed as much as $50,000 a day in street sales.

The death penalty provision was part of an omnibus anti-crime bill passed by Congress two years ago. There are several federal death penalty statutes on the books, but most were rendered unenforceable by a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision that also invalidated state death penalty laws. Executions later resumed in some states after legislatures rewrote capital punishment statutes to satisfy high court objections.

The only other federal crimes currently subject to capital punishment are espionage committed by a member of the military and murder committed during an airline hijacking.

Times researcher Tracy Shryer contributed to this story.