NEW VOICES: Former Reagan Attorney General and Former Manhattan Prosecutor Speak Out In Possible Innocence Case

Edwin Meese III (pic­tured), who served as U.S. Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, and Robert Morgenthau, the long-time dis­trict attor­ney of Manhattan who served as a U.S. attor­ney under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, believe that Alabama death row pris­on­er William Kuenzel is inno­cent and are urg­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case. Meese and Morgenthau belong to dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal par­ties and take oppos­ing views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but both believe that Kuenzel was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and con­demned for the 1987 mur­der of a con­ve­nience store clerk and deserves a chance to present new evi­dence. Kuenzel was impli­cat­ed in the mur­der after a car belong­ing to Harvey Venn, a board­er in Kuenzel’s home, was seen near the crime scene. He was con­vict­ed after Venn admit­ted to hav­ing dri­ven the car, but claimed that Kuenzel had actu­al­ly shot the clerk, and a 16-year-old pas­sen­ger in a car that was pass­ing by the store tes­ti­fied that she had seen Venn and Kuenzel inside the store. Alabama pros­e­cu­tors offered both men a deal for lenien­cy if they agreed to plead guilty and tes­ti­fy against one anoth­er. Venn agreed and spent only ten years in prison, but Kuenzel main­tained his inno­cence and reject­ed the deal. Since the tri­al, pre­vi­ous­ly-with­held evi­dence has emerged that sup­ports Kuenzel’s inno­cence claim, includ­ing police notes of an ini­tial inter­view with Venn in which he said anoth­er man was in the car with him, and the grand jury tes­ti­mo­ny of the passer­by in which the girl said that she ​“could­n’t real­ly see” the faces of the men in the store. In an ami­cus brief, Meese calls the with­hold­ing of that evi­dence ​“the very worst kind of Brady vio­la­tion, which result­ed in con­demn­ing to death a defen­dant whose con­vic­tion was obtained in vio­la­tion of the Constitution and who is very like­ly actu­al­ly inno­cent.” Morgenthau said of Kuenzel, “[t]here’s no pos­si­ble way he could have com­mit­ted the mur­der.” Meese and Morgenthau also share a con­cern about the qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es, and are call­ing for auto­mat­ic appel­late review of the com­pe­tence of defense counsel.

(J. Bravin, ​“Law-Enforcement Legends Team Up in Death-Penalty Fight,” Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2016.) See New Voices and Innocence. Read Edwin Meese III’s ami­cus brief in William Ernest Kuenzel v. Alabama.