In First Post-Ferguson Election for St. Louis County Prosecutor, Death-Penalty Opponent Unseats Long-Time Incumbent

In an elec­tion viewed as a ref­er­en­dum on racial jus­tice and crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, death-penal­ty oppo­nent Wesley Bell (pic­tured, left) sound­ly defeat­ed sev­en-term incum­bent, Robert McCulloch (pic­tured, right) for the Democratic nom­i­na­tion for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney. With no Republican oppo­si­tion in the gen­er­al elec­tion, Bell, a Ferguson, Missouri, city coun­cil mem­ber, is expect­ed to become the coun­ty’s first African-American chief prosecutor. 

The elec­tion was the first time McCulloch — who had a sub­stan­tial­ly larg­er cam­paign purse and was heav­i­ly favored to win — had faced the vot­ers since the Ferguson protests and his fail­ure to indict a white police offi­cer for the mur­der of unarmed black teenag­er, Michael Brown. Bell, a for­mer pub­lic defend­er and pros­e­cu­tor who called for end­ing cash bail for non­vi­o­lent offens­es, end­ing mass incar­cer­a­tion, and elim­i­nat­ing use of the death penal­ty, was endorsed by numer­ous activist orga­ni­za­tions pro­mot­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, includ­ing Democracy for America, The Color of Change, and The Real Justice PAC. 

Surprising the polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment, Bell won eas­i­ly, receiv­ing 57% of the vote. 

McCullouch — the coun­ty’s Prosecuting Attorney since 1991 — was known as a high­ly aggres­sive pros­e­cu­tor with close ties to the police and who dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly sought death sen­tences. Community activists and civ­il rights groups were gal­va­nized in oppo­si­tion to McCulloch after he failed to indict Officer Darren Wilson for Brown’s mur­der, pros­e­cut­ed Ferguson pro­test­ers, and advo­cat­ed for the exe­cu­tion of death-row pris­on­er Marcellus Williams despite DNA evi­dence reveal­ing that anoth­er man’s DNA — and not Williams’ — was on the murder weapon. 

A July 2015 study found that the coun­ty’s death-penal­ty prac­tices con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to stark racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in the appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Missouri. The study found that a per­son con­vict­ed of homi­cide in St. Louis County is three times more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than if he or she were con­vict­ed else­where in the state and 13 times more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than a per­son con­vict­ed in neigh­bor­ing St. Louis City. Courts also have repeat­ed­ly found that the coun­ty’s pros­e­cu­tors dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly struck African Americans from jury ser­vice because of their race. 

St. Louis County ranks among the 2% of U.S. coun­ties that have pro­duced a major­i­ty of all death sen­tences in the U.S. since the 1970s, and it has exe­cut­ed more pris­on­ers than all but eight oth­er coun­ties in the coun­try dur­ing that peri­od. Bell’s cam­paign web­site says ​“cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is expen­sive, inef­fec­tive at deter­rence, and is also racial­ly biased. … [D]ecades of data and infor­ma­tion deter­mine that Capital Punishment is not a deter­rent for vio­lent crime. Exercising his dis­cre­tion as Prosecuting Attorney, [Bell] will nev­er seek the death sentence.”

McCulloch’s defeat con­tin­ues a trend in which vot­ers have oust­ed pros­e­cu­tors in the most pro­lif­ic death-sen­tenc­ing coun­ties in the U.S. Since 2015, vot­ers have replaced pros­e­cu­tors in Jefferson County, Alabama; San Bernardino, California; Duval and Hillsborough Counties in Florida; Caddo Parish, Louisiana; and Harris County, Texas; and have elect­ed new D.A.s in Denver, Colorado and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who had pledged nev­er to use the death penalty.