Amnesty International Calls on Missouri to Commute Death Sentence in Reggie Clemons Case

New Report Finds Serious Flaws in Case, Including Prosecutorial Misconduct, Alleged Police Coercion and 'Infected' Jury

ST. LOUIS, May 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Amnesty International today called on the state of Missouri to spare the life of Reggie Clemons, saying serious flaws in his 1993 conviction undermine any claim that justice was served  in the case. In a new report, the human rights organization points to highly disturbing aspects in the prosecution for the drowning deaths of two sisters, including misconduct by the prosecutor, alleged police coercion and brutality, prejudicial jury selection and ineffective legal counsel.

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 The Amnesty International report also says race was an issue at trial because African Americans were disproportionately excluded from the jury. In addition, a white suspect whose testimony largely led to the conviction of Clemons -- who is African American -- later received an out-of-court settlement of a reported $150,000 to settle a suit claiming he was beaten during interrogation by the same officers that Clemons also alleged beat him.

 Clemons' execution is on hold while a special master judge assigned by the Missouri Supreme Court independently examines the case.  While Amnesty International views this as a positive step the organization said justice demands that Clemons be granted clemency immediately.

No physical evidence ties Clemons to the deaths of Julie Kerry, 20, and her sister Robin, 19, nor is there any eyewitness testimony against him. The prosecution conceded that Clemons neither killed the sisters, nor planned the crime.

 The lack of physical evidence in the Clemons conviction has drawn comparisons to the Troy Davis death penalty case in Georgia, which is being reopened under Supreme Court mandate.

"Reggie Clemons has spent most of his adult life on death row in a case that is stunning for the breadth of its serious flaws," said Jamal Watkins, Amnesty International USA's Midwest Regional Director.  "The errors in police and prosecutors' behavior have undermined any claim that justice has been served in this case, either for the victims, their families or for Reggie Clemons."

Watkins said: "Given the public's heightened recognition that mistakes regularly occur in death penalty cases and the innocent are wrongly executed, we have to ask whether 12 jurors today would make the same decision in the Clemons case that the jury made 17 years ago."

Clemons was 19 when the sisters, both white, died after falling from a bridge into the Mississippi River in April 1991. Now 37, Clemons was then convicted as an accomplice on the testimony of two white men -- one a suspect and the other a defendant -- both of whom are now free.  Clemons has consistently denied involvement in the deaths.

The new report, "Death by Prosecutorial Misconduct and A 'Stacked' Jury" highlights disturbing flaws in the case as follows:

• A pattern of prosecutorial misconduct that both state and federal courts have acknowledged, including closing arguments in which the prosecutor described a "hypothetical" crime in which the victims were stabbed in a dark room, which misrepresented the facts of the case.
• A predominantly white jury (with only two African Americans) while most trials in St. Louis more equally represent the city's makeup of whites and blacks, which is about half and half.
• Alleged police brutality, including independent statements by a defendant and a suspect  alleging they were assaulted by the police officers who interrogated them and were beaten in an effort to force them to make incriminating statements.
• Ineffective legal representation, including the fact that one of Clemons' lawyers was working full time out of state in the months before the trial began.

Watkins said: "The authorities in Missouri must right this wrong by commuting the death sentence against Reggie Clemons.  Amnesty International urges the state to act before a final irrevocable and tragic mistake is made in the Clemons case."

The report also concludes that the 12 selected jurors may have been "infected" by the prejudicial thinking of prospective jurors who made strong statements supportive of police and the prosecutor, Nels Moss, who has since left the St. Louis prosecutor's office. Two of these prospective jurors had ties to the prosecutor and police.  One of them assisted in the investigation, and was overheard by 20 prospective jurors stating "whoever did this are dirty rotten people and they should get everything they've got coming to them."

Clemons said police coerced him into implicating himself.  He said he was beaten -- including having his head repeatedly slammed against a wall -- from the moment he asked for a lawyer.

 He said he agreed to record a statement "because I was being beaten." On tape, he admitted to participating in the rape of the two women but denied any involvement in their deaths. During arraignment, his face was swollen.

Clemons was convicted primarily on the testimony of Thomas Cummins and Daniel Winfrey. Cummins implicated himself, and was charged in the case after initially telling police that four youths -- one white and three black- had raped his cousins and robbed him before pushing the young women off the bridge and ordering him to jump in after them.

The charges were dropped against Cummins when he identified four defendants in a lineup. Cummins later sued police for brutality -- making the same allegations that Clemons had against the same officers -- and later received a reported $150,000 out-of-court settlement of his suit.

Winfrey pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, testified against the other defendants and has been released.

The Amnesty International report also raised concern about the legal representation that Clemons received.

Lawyer Jeanene Moenckmeier, who, with her husband, Robert Costantinou, was hired by Clemons' family, moved from Missouri six months before trial to begin a new full-time job in California. Another lawyer who was brought on weeks before the trial began testified that lawyers Moenckmeier and Costantinou had collected no evidence, done no investigation and had not even read the police reports.

Two other young African American men were sentenced to death in the case. Marlin Gray was executed in 2005.  The sentence against Antonio Richardson was reduced to life in prison in 2003.

Death Penalty Cases in the United States

More than 3,200 prisoners are on death row in the United States.  Nearly 1,200 men and women have been executed since executions resumed in 1977.  In 2009, 52 men were put to death; seven have been executed so far this year.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

SOURCE Amnesty International