Capano gets life without parole
The ex-lawyer was resentenced for murdering Anne Marie Fahey. His death sentence was overturned.
This story was originally published on March 3, 2006.
Seven years after his conviction, Thomas Capano was sentenced to life in prison yesterday for murdering his secret mistress, Anne Marie Fahey, and then dumping her body in the Atlantic Ocean.
Judge T. Henley Graves imposed the mandated sentence during a hearing that lasted less than three minutes. The life with no chance of parole sentence ends a 10-year battle through the Delaware court system in one of the most sensational cases in state history.
"He has avoided the death sentence but has not avoided dying in prison, and that is as it should be," state prosecutor Ferris Wharton said before Graves imposed the sentence.
Capano, dressed in an orange, prison-issue jump suit, declined to address the court.
Members of the Fahey family said after the hearing that they were satisfied with the sentence.
"The family always looked for a conviction," said Kathleen Fahey-Hosey, sister of the victim.
Asked whether she was satisfied that Capano would die in prison, Fahey-Hosey replied, "The sooner, the better. "
But she said the sentence would not provide the "closure" that Judge Graves mentioned. "Once he's dead, it will be closure," Fahey-Hosey said.
About a dozen Fahey family members and friends sat in the front row of the eighth floor courtroom for the hearing.
Capano, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard, shuffled into court carrying some legal papers and accompanied by his attorney, Joseph Bernstein. No one from Capano's family attended the hearing.
Once a wealthy lawyer and political powerbroker, Capano appeared to have gained considerable weight since his trial seven years ago. His skin was pale and his face puffy.
Bernstein said before the hearing that Capano had gained weight as a result of medication. The lawyer was not more specific.
Capano's appearance was not lost on Fahey's family.
"Physically, he looks awful, but that's OK with me," Fahey-Hosey said.
Since his conviction for first-degree murder in January 1999, Capano has spent most of his time in isolation on death row. But in January, the Delaware Supreme Court overturned his death sentence, ruling that the process used to arrive at it was unconstitutional.
Last month the state Attorney General's Office opted not to seek a new sentencing hearing, a move that insured Capano would be sentenced to life without parole.
"The death penalty was always a secondary issue," said Colm Connelly, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware.
Wharton and Connelly were co-prosecutors at the Capano trial seven years ago. They won a first-degree murder conviction despite the fact that they had no body, no murder weapon, and no definitive cause of death.
Capano, who testified for six days in his own defense, claimed that Fahey was killed accidentally by another one of his mistresses out of jealousy. Capano said he dumped Fahey's body 60 miles at sea in an attempt to protect the other woman from prosecution.
Wharton and Connelly argued that Capano killed Fahey, the scheduling secretary for then-Gov. Thomas Carper, because she refused to renew a secret love affair. Capano, then 48, was 20 years older than Fahey and married with four young girls.
"If he couldn't have her, no one would," Connelly told the jury in outlining the state's alleged motive for the killing.
The same jury that convicted Capano voted 10-2 at a post-trial sentencing hearing to recommend he be sentenced to death. Trial judge William Swain Lee then imposed the death sentence.
But the state Supreme Court, citing a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in another case, said that only a jury can impose a death sentence and that jury must be unanimous.
Capano has exhausted all his appeals in the state court system, his lawyer said yesterday. But he is now seeking a federal review of his conviction.
Bernstein said the fact that Lee did not give the jury an option to find Capano guilty of a lesser murder charge is one of the key issues being raised in the federal appeal to overturn the conviction.
Bernstein said he expected that the appeals process in federal court would take several years.
Contact staff writer George Anastasia at 856-779-3846 or ganastasia@phillynews.com.