It is understandable that many good-hearted citizens support capital punishment as a sentencing option, and lose interest quickly at the suggestion of staying a scheduled execution or reopening a closed capital murder case. People do rape and kill. The thirst for vengeance and closure in the aftermath of rape and murder is understandable. Even good Christians who know by heart Jesus Christ’s teachings to turn the other cheek are capable of wanting the old-school retribution of an eye for an eye, particularly when they think that an execution will remove a monster from the world permanently and serve as a vivid deterrent to keep future troublemakers from committing the most heinous crimes.
The ethics of punishing a murderer by ending his life are questionable. So is the deterrent factor of capital punishment. At the moment, however, let us assume that capital punishment is a viable sentencing option and will remain sanctioned by law in this state and this country. For now, let us simply make the case that one man condemned to die at our hands, Reginald Clemons of St. Louis, does not deserve that fate.
Clemons falls, for many, into the category of “close the case,” simply because he has been convicted in connection with horrible crimes that remain in public memory: the rape and murder of two young sisters, Julie and Robin Kerry, who fell to their deaths from the Chain of Rocks Bridge on April 4, 1991.
But there was more than reasonable doubt in the evidence presented against Clemons, and the other two young black men who ended up on death row for the murder of these two young white women, Antonio Richardson (whose sentence was subsequently commuted to life in prison) and the late Marlin A. Gray (who was executed on October 26).
The prosecution’s primary witness, Thomas Cummins (a cousin of the Kerry sisters), was also its first suspect. He first told St. Louis Police Department detectives that he had accidentally caused one girl to fall, then the other jumped in to save her. This story changed several times, and was accompanied by many claims that were not credible, the most obvious being that Cummins had survived a fall off the bridge and a swim to safety in the Mississippi River with no injuries and, indeed, without getting entirely wet or even messing up his hair.
Cummins’ hair was examined, and no river silt was found. He failed a polygraph test. All the physical evidence was against him. Amazingly, the equivalent tests were not conducted on the young black men who were later condemned to die.
Cummins claimed that his initial confession was beaten out of him by the St. Louis police. The city settled out of court – for a reported $150,000, though the deal was sealed (another detail that critics find sinister). Gray and Clemons also confessed and claimed their confessions were beaten out of them by the same cops Cummins said coerced him. Clemons’ injuries sustained during police custody were so obvious they were noticed by a judge who saw him from the bench, and who then had the youth sent for medical treatment.
Evidence of Cummins’ beating and his settlement with the city was not permitted in the capital trials of Clemons, Gray or Richardson – three separate trials, argued with three separate strategies by prosecutor Nels C. Moss. For yet another example of differential treatment, Daniel Winfrey – another defendant in the case, a white youth who was a juvenile at the time of his arrest – was interviewed in the presence of a parent and a juvenile officer, as per the Juvenile Codes. Richardson, also a juvenile at the time of his arrest, was not granted these legal rights.
It is tempting to speculate about how this slipshod piece of justice went down. There is always tremendous pressure to close a highly public case that involves violent crime. In the halls of justice, a small lie sometimes requires a much larger and bolder lie to hide it. And few observers would deny that race played a role, when we consider the track record of the St. Louis police or, for that matter, the fate of black men when charged with violating or killing white women.
Luis Vega testified that race was a factor in these cases. According to Vega, Winfrey told him that he would lie his way out of his legal problems by testifying against Clemons, Richardson and Gray, because “nobody was going to believe a bunch of niggers anyway.” Vega’s statement was never read in court, because in it, according to the court, “Winfrey does not specifically admit to giving false testimony against the petitioned. At most, Winfrey may have revealed a possible motive for giving false testimony.”
In the light of so much misconduct by investigators and the prosecution, and with so many questions left unanswered, so many things that do not add up, it was wrong for the state of Missouri to execute Marlin A. Gray, and it would be wrong at this time to execute Reginald Clemons. Governor Matt Blunt should grant clemency to Reginald Clemons, and Clemons and Richardson should have their cases reopened and retried according to principles of justice appropriate to a democracy that guarantees fair and equal treatment to all.