Prosecutors ended their case yesterday against Francisco Martin Duran, the Colorado man accused of trying to assassinate President Clinton in October when he opened fire on the White House.
Through 57 witnesses and more than 200 exhibits, prosecutors Eric A. Dubelier and Brenda Johnson tried to show that Duran had planned his trip to Washington, buying an assault rifle before he left Colorado and telling friends that he wanted to "take out" the president.
Duran's attorneys, public defenders A.J. Kramer and Leigh A. Kenny, told U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey that they will call several witnesses today but probably will not call mental-health specialists to testify about Duran's state of mind at the time of the shooting.
Although they have given notice to the court that they might use an insanity defense and have told the jury that Duran suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, Kramer and Kenny do not have to reveal their strategy to prosecutors until virtually the last minute.
In addition to the charge of trying to kill Clinton, Duran, 26, faces nine felony counts involving assault and firearms offenses stemming from the Oct. 29 incident. His attorneys have admitted that he fired the shots, which caused about $3,400 in damage to the White House. They say, however, that he was not aiming at the president but at the White House as a political symbol.
Government witnesses also raised the possibility that Duran fired after seeing a man on the White House lawn who -- from a distance -- looks like Clinton. According to testimony, the man was in a group of businessmen who were standing near the White House at the time Duran opened fire. An Indiana schoolboy testified that Duran cocked his head as if taking aim at the men.
David Millis, a friend of Duran's, told the jury that Duran often talked about his hatred of the government and the president while they smoked marijuana. They met at the Broadmoor Hotel, a resort in Colorado Springs, where Millis was a laundry worker and Duran was an upholsterer.
"He disliked the president because, I think, the way he saw it, he was the top guy. He told me one time that if there's anything to be done about it, you have to go to the top and take out the top person," said Millis, who earlier had sold his information about Duran for $5,000 to the television program "A Current Affair."
After he arrived in the Washington area Oct. 10, Duran stayed in several hotels, including the Washington Hilton, the site of John W. Hinckley Jr.'s 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. In the days before the shooting, he dated a woman who had placed a personal ad in The Washington Post. He also met a tattooed woman in a hot tub at a Vienna hotel and tried unsuccessfully to get her to date him.
Both sides used evidence seized from Duran, his pickup truck, his home and his office at the Broadmoor to make their points.
Prosecutors used a road atlas on which Duran had written "Kill the Prez" and business cards with violent messages scrawled on the backs.
Defense attorneys used some of the same documents to show that Duran was interested in out-of-body experiences and thought he was Jesus Christ. Kramer and Kenny also focused on writings and statements that indicated that Duran expected to die.
After a tourist thanked a Secret Service officer for not shooting him as he tackled Duran in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, the officer testified, Duran said, "I wish you would've shot me."
Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.
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