Columnist Jamala Rogers
There was genuine jubilance for the court-ordered temporary postponement of Reggie Clemons’ execution date, even though Attorney General Chris Koster can challenge it and Governor Jay Nixon can do likewise.
Even though it mainly allows for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the way the State of Missouri carries out executions and doesn’t address the essence of Reggie’s innocence.
Still, justice-loving people exhaled a collective sign of relief last Friday when the decision was announced.
About the same time, Shannon Finley and Charles Crostley were released from prison as free men in Paris, Texas.
Finley and Crostley, both white, were arrested and charged in the gruesome death last fall of Brandon McClelland, a 24-year-old African-American man. Finley is alleged to have deliberately hit McClelland and dragged him until his mutilated and dismembered body finally dislodged from the pick up truck. Pieces of McClelland’s skull were found three days later along the country road.
(No, this is not the infamous Byrd case in Jasper, Tex. – this is another one!)
Finley and Crostly originally swore they had nothing to do with the incident, yet they immediately washed the truck to get rid of any incriminating evidence. Despite their best, devious efforts, blood and other evidence was found on the truck. The dudes were arrested and charged with murder. Sounds like a slam dunk.
Oh, no. An unnamed truck driver recently came forward who thinks he may have accidentally hit McClelland that fateful night. He won’t be charged because there was no crime. The prosecutor dismissed the murder charges against Finley and Crostly.
Reggie Clemons’ nightmare through the judicial system is rife with injustices, from a beaten confession by police to misconduct by a notorious prosecutor.
Clemons is currently on death row stemming from the drowning deaths of Julie and Robin Kerry in 1991. He was accused but never convicted of rape. Linking the rape of white girls to black youth made for titillating media coverage for prosecutor Nels Moss, who was running for Circuit Attorney at the time.
To this day, the Chain of Rocks Bridge tragedy raises more questions than the courts ever tried to answer.
Back in Texas, we find out that Finley has gotten over on the courts system before. Five years earlier, he accidentally shot his “friend” three times while trying to shoot two gun-toting black men who were trying to rob them. It probably was the same two “black men” who Bonnie Sweeten said abducted her and her young daughter a couple of weeks ago in Philly. Authorities later found Sweeten kicking it up in Disney World.
It appears that Finley gets the hookup whenever he needs it. His court-appointed defense attorney for that 2003 “accidental” death is now the district attorney who dropped the charges in the McClelland death. District Attorney Gary Young saw no need to recuse himself.
American-style justice works if you’re white, if you have political connections or money, and if your victim is poor or black. In a court of law, the main difference between Shannon Finley and Reggie Clemons is the color of their skin. Ditto with Tom Cummins.
Cummins originally confessed to the murders of his two cousins. Somewhere along the way, Cummins went from being prime suspect to the State’s star witness. The prosecutor wants us to believe that Clemons, who had no criminal record, went from being a happy-go-lucky kid to a rapist and murderer.
Unfortunately, Moss was able to convince 12, mainly white jurors, that such a transformation had indeed occurred.
Racism, class, politics, economics, a corrupted judicial system and police abuse can cut down an innocent black man’s life, but the very same factors that are used to save an apparently guilty white man.
Our responsibility as a civilized country is to ensure equal protection under the law for all citizens. The governor and the attorney general have a great responsibility because they were elected to the two highest offices of the state. We must ensure they give Reggie Clemons and the Kerry sisters the justice they deserve.