The Missouri Supreme Court ruled 4 – 3 on November 24 to vacate the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Reginald (Reggie) Clemons (pic­tured), who has been on death row for 22 years for the inter­ra­cial rape and mur­der of two sis­ters. The court said that Clemons, did not receive a fair tri­al because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. In par­tic­u­lar, the court was trou­bled by what it con­clud­ed was a delib­er­ate fail­ure by pros­e­cu­tiors to pro­vide Clemons’ defense with evi­dence that he had been beat­en to elic­it a con­fes­sion. ​“The record includes sub­stan­tial, cred­i­ble evi­dence that Mr Clemons’ con­fes­sion was coerced by phys­i­cal abuse inflict­ed by the police that would require that his con­fes­sion be sup­pressed,” Chief Justice Patricia Breckenridge wrote. The court said that the pros­e­cu­tion’s mis­con­duct was even more prej­u­di­cial in this case because, after with­hold­ing evi­dence of the beat­ing by police, it then filed a motion to bar the defense from argu­ing that Clemons con­fes­sion had been coerced, suc­cess­ful­ly assert­ing that the evi­dence at tri­al did not sup­port an infer­ence that police had beat­en Clemons. The court’s deci­sion relied heav­i­ly on the find­ings of a Special Master who reviewed the case in 2013. Clemons also raised the issue of his sen­tence being dis­pro­por­tion­ate to those of the oth­er men involved in the crime. Of the four defen­dants in the case, Clemons and two oth­er black men received death sen­tences, while the one white defen­dant is now out on parole. The court declined to address the issue of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty because the oth­er evi­dence was suf­fi­cient to over­turn Clemons’ con­vic­tion. A 2012 report by The Guardian iden­ti­fied 21 dis­crep­an­cies in the pros­e­cu­tion’s case against Clemons, includ­ing, among oth­ers, that the pros­e­cu­tion nev­er dis­closed the exis­tence of a rape kit that could have iden­ti­fied the per­pe­tra­tor and pre­sent­ed no evi­dence from the rape kit at tri­al; pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny in a co-defen­dan­t’s tri­al that anoth­er per­son actu­al­ly pushed the sis­ters off a bridge into the Mississippi River; and that pros­e­cu­tors dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly exer­cised their dis­cre­tionary strikes to pre­vent sev­en black jurors from sit­ting on the case. The state of Missouri has 60 days from the rul­ing to decide whether to retry Clemons.

(E. Pilkington, ​“Missouri supreme court rules to dis­miss death row inmate’s mur­der con­vic­tions,” The Guardian, November 25, 2015; State v. Clemons, Opinion of Missouri Supreme Court, November 24, 2015; E. Pilkington, ​“Reggie Clemons: 21 dis­crep­an­cies that cast doubt on his con­vic­tion,” The Guardian, August 22, 2012.) See Arbitrariness and Race.

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