Vol. 76/No. 10      March 12, 2012

A chronology put out by the Justice for Reggie Clemons Campaign outlines facts about the case.

Clemons was convicted in 1993 as an accomplice to the murder of the two young women—Julie and Robin Kerry—who drowned after plunging from the Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis into the Mississippi River.

He was among a group of four youths who encountered the sisters and their cousin, Thomas Cummins, on the bridge. Cummins initially implicated himself in the murder but recanted and was released.

Three days after the women’s deaths, police detectives without a warrant picked up Clemons at his home. Clemons’ request for a lawyer was denied. According to the Justice for Reggie Clemons Campaign, the cops beat him for several hours and coerced him to sign a statement admitting to rape of one of the women, but denying he pushed them off the bridge.

At his arraignment two days later the judge, upon seeing Clemons’ injuries, sent him to the hospital.

At the trial prosecutors conceded that Clemons neither pushed the women nor planned the crime. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. After Clemons was convicted of murder, the prosecutor dropped rape and robbery charges connected to the case.

Clemons received “grossly ineffective” trial counsel, the fact sheet notes.

In May 1997 the Missouri Supreme Court affirmed Clemons’ conviction and sentence. In August 2002 U.S. District Court judge Catherine Perry vacated his death sentence, but not his conviction, on the grounds of “prosecutorial misconduct” and the improper exclusion of a potential juror. She ordered the state to either resentence Clemons to life imprisonment or grant a new trial. Two years later a federal appeals court overturned this decision. In October 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Clemons’ case.

But Clemons and his supporters did not give up the fight. Shortly before a June 2009 execution date a federal appeals court issued a stay at the request of Clemons’ lawyers. A “Special Master” was appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court to review evidence in the case. The hearing date has been postponed several times and is now scheduled for Sept. 17, 2012.

“This is the first time ever in 20 years we’ve been heard to any extent at all,” Vera Thomas, Clemons’ mother, told a Feb. 27 meeting at City College of New York. “This started out as a nightmare in 1991” and since then “we’re trying to bring justice to the issue.” The event was hosted by Amnesty International.

“The prosecutor concealed evidence on the rape and robbery charges,” Thomas told the meeting, and the trial judge wouldn’t let the jury hear about the police beating of her son.

Clemons called the meeting from prison. “Even though they’ve pushed the [Special Master’s] hearing back, just keep on fighting,” he said.

Thomas told the Militant she’s getting a “good response” speaking around the country, including at events sponsored by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the NAACP. “People are appalled by justice in this system,” she said.

“This is the beginning of getting out the word about Reggie’s case in a bigger way in the New York area,” said Thenjiwe McHarris, a local organizer for Amnesty International.

For more information on the case go to www.justiceforreggie.com.
 
 
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