In what could be the turning point in a landmark case, the Missouri Supreme Court has in effect opened the way for the presentation of new evidence in the case of Missouri death row inmate Reginald Clemons.
On Tuesday the Court appointed Jackson County Circuit Judge Michael W. Manners to serve as a special master – a kind of independent adjunct judge – in the case. This is a response to Clemons’ most recent petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
According to the order, Manners is appointed “with full power and authority to issue subpoenas” and to “compel production of books, papers and documents and the attendance of witnesses.”
The Court ordered that the judge is empowered to hear evidence and have it transcribed “to the same extent as this Court might in a trial before it” – which opens the way for the presentation of new evidence.
“I told my husband, ‘Now I have to go run around the park,’” Vera Thomas, mother of the condemned, said when she heard the news.
“My son could be dead now. I’ll never forget this.”
Clemons’ execution had been scheduled by the Missouri Supreme Court for June 17, until the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a stay of execution while it rules on a separate procedural appeal.
Clemons himself is unavailable for comment. He currently is in solitary confinement at Potosi Correctional Center.
For many years Clemons’ lawyers have bemoaned the incompetence of his defense counsel in his 1993 jury trial for the murders of Robin Kerry and Julie Kerry. Because of the defense counsel’s spotty record introducing evidence, summoning witnesses and raising objections, Clemons’ options have been severely limited in the appeals process.
Clemons’ petition for clemency from Gov. Jay Nixon makes this point and urges Nixon to take advantage of his opportunity to consider all of the evidence in the case, not just the trial record.
In effect, the new order mandating a special master with subpoena power will enable the Missouri Supreme Court to enrich the material it can consider in ruling on Clemons’ appeal. Among many other developments sure to be brought to the attention of Manners is that a juror from the 1993 trial has since said she would not have voted for the death penalty had more complete evidence been presented in trial.
“Under Missouri law, a writ of habeas corpus is warranted where new evidence of innocence is presented to the Court,” Clemons’ current counsel notes in the new writ of habeas corpus.
“The new evidence need not establish the petitioner’s innocence with absolute certainty. Rather, it must undermine the Court’s confidence in the outcome of the trial by making it more likely than not that a reasonable juror would harbor reasonable doubt.”
Clemons’ writ of habeas corpus asks the Court to commute his death sentence to life in prison without parole – or grant him a new and fair trial.
“I commend the Missouri Supreme Court for this courageous decision to appoint a special master in the Reginald Clemons case,” said U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay.
“The full facts have never been presented under oath, and there is a very real possibility that crucial evidence has been suppressed. I urge Judge Manners to take whatever time is required to fully investigate all circumstances, with new evidence and additional witnesses that will lead to the whole truth in the best interests of justice for Julie and Robin Kerry and Reginald Clemons.”
New evidence
One crucial piece of new evidence pertains to the prosecution’s star witness, Thomas Cummins, a cousin of the Kerry sisters who initially confessed to a role in their deaths. He later claimed that his confession was rehearsed and coerced by St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department detectives.
Clemons made precisely the same claim two days after his own interrogation and confession to rape (but not murder).
Clemons’ confession was admitted in court and used against him to convict him and sentence him to death. Cummins was paid $150,000 in a settlement for a police brutality suit he filed on the very day Clemons was sentenced to death.
“The allegations and the settlement, both of which represent new evidence under Missouri law and are presented to this Court for the first time through this petition, strongly support Clemons’ own independent claim of police brutality that resulted in him giving his coerced statement to the police,” his lawyers argue.
Clemons’ allegedly rehearsed and coerced confession was crucial to the prosecution because, as his lawyers argue, “There was absolutely no physical evidence tying Clemons to the murders.”
In fact, there is new evidence that the State illegally withheld forensic evidence that would have helped Clemons’ defense.
As reported in The St. Louis American, prosecutor Nels C. Moss recently admitted on The Charles Jaco show that he withheld forensic evidence from Clemons’ defense counsel.
Moss admitted to Jaco and Redditt Hudson of the ACLU that he was the last person in the custody chain in possession of clothing recovered from the body of Julie Kerry.
“Had the defense asked for it, it was theirs,” Moss said on television.
In fact, as reported in The American, Clemons’ counsel specifically did ask for the clothing in a pretrial motion to compel discovery of evidence.
According to the State’s witnesses, Julie Kerry was pushed into the river nude and her corpse should not have had any clothing.
The defense also asked – but did not receive in discovery – jewelry recovered from the corpse, which would have cast doubt on the State’s argument that Clemons and his codefendants had a robbery motive in confronting Cummins and the Kerry girls on the Chain of Rocks Bridge on April 4, 1991.
Moss has not returned repeated calls from The American.
Bishop Reynolds Thomas, Clemons’ stepfather, said, “You can’t keep truth buried forever.”