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Show Supreme Court closes book on Singer wrongful death suit f byNanChalat The six-year legal battle over the death of John Singer has come to a close. Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case, lawyer Gerry Spence, working in behalf of widow Vickie Singer, said there will be no further litigation. The conflict began when Singer, a fundamentalist Mormom, refused to send his seven children to public school. When threatened with arrest if he continued to keep them at home, Singer is reported to have said that he would never be taken alive. He was shot during an arrest attempt at his home by state authorities in 1979. U.S. District Court Judge David K. Winder last ruled the officers had acted in self defense, but Vickie Singer appealed the case to the 10 th Circuit Court in Denver, asking $111 million in damages for the wrongful death of her husband. After that court upheld Winder's opinion, Spence claimed the Singers had not received a fair trial because of the influence of the Mormon Church which had earlier excommunicated excom-municated Singer. Spence petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court with a writ of certiori. The Supreme Court's refusal to grant the writ has "frightening implications," Spence said. "It is frightening to me because it means it is possible in America for a man whose greatest crime was a benign act of civil disobedience to be shot in the back and for his widow to be denied the right to a trial by jury to determine whether that act was justified." David Fleisher, who wrote Death of an American, said the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case leaves several lingering questions. "In my book the question is raised "Who has the final say over the education of children the state or the family? That question has still not been answered and if there had been a trial maybe it would have been." I As to the death of John Singer, Fleisher said, "I don't think there were any heroes or villians in this story, even though we would like to create them. Everyone was trying to do what they thought was right, 1 that's the tragic thing about it. "My personal feeling is that the arrest plan was a poor one. They s could have sent the air force in to jjj arrest him and he would have done the same thing. They were operating H in two different worlds." Four of the Singer children are still being taught at home, he said. "I f don't think the children will become social outcasts, but some of them have formed a hard outer shell jj toward society," he said. g ' ' I plan to stay in touch with Vickie ' and the family as a friend and 15 because I am still interested to see how things develop for them." I |