WashPo: Ninth execution in Missouri this year in what activists say was racially biased case

[Stefanie Faucher]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/11/19/ninth-execution-in-missouri-this-year-in-what-activists-say-was-racially-biased-case/

Post Nation
Ninth execution in Missouri this year in what activists say was racially biased case
By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
Washington Post
November 19 at 11:07 AM

The man who killed a suburban Kansas City, Mo., gas station attendant in front of the worker’s 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1994 was put to death just past midnight on Wednesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre, the ninth execution in the Missouri this year.

With Leon Taylor’s death by lethal injection, 2014 ties 1999 for having the most executions in a year in Missouri. The execution came amid racial tension in the state over the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.

His attorneys rushed to try to stop the sentence. Their court appeals claimed the death penalty was unfair in the case for a variety of reasons, including the racial make-up of the jury.

Taylor’s original jury was deadlocked, and a judge sentenced him to death. When that sentence was thrown out, an all-white jury gave Taylor, an African American, the death sentence.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a judge who imposed a death sentence after a jury recommended life in prison. Taylor’s lawyers argued that a subsequent Missouri Supreme Court ruling led the state to commute at least 10 other death sentences for inmates sentenced by a judge — everyone except Taylor, they said.

“With the backdrop of Ferguson, it’s astonishing that Governor (Jay) Nixon can fail to take seriously real and justified concerns with racial fairness in Leon Taylor’s execution and others that have already taken place,” said Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP). “Only through a lethal combination of racial bias, legal loopholes and prosecutorial misconduct can an African-American man be sentenced to death first by a single judge, then by an all-white jury, and have that process be considered fair.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D), “should use his office to grant clemency in a case such as this, where we can’t be confident that the process was conducted with the highest integrity,” Rust-Tierney said.

But Taylor’s fate was sealed on Tuesday when Nixon declined to grant clemency. The U.S. Supreme Court also turned declined to stop the execution.

Taylor’s execution went off without any visible complications with the drug or equipment, unlike ones that have gone awry recently in Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona.

In a final statement, Taylor apologized to victim Robert Newton’s family because “our lives had to entwine so tragically” and thanked his family for their support and love.

“I am also sorry to have brought all of you to this point in my life to witness this and/or participate,” Taylor said. “Stay strong and keep your heads to the sky.”

Speaking to reporters after the execution, Newton’s brother, Dennis Smith, said his family has missed the hard-working man with a hearty laugh for 7,500 days since the killing.

“It would just take a coward to want to hurt someone like him,” Smith said.

Taylor shot Newton in front of Newton’s young  stepdaughter in Independence, Mo. He tried to shoot the girl, too, but the gun jammed.

“She had the gun turned on her,” said Michael Hunt, an assistant Jackson County prosecutor who worked on the case. “It didn’t fire. If it had fired, we’d have had a double homicide.”

In a written statement, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said Taylor “coldly murdered” Newton. “Those who knew and loved Robert Newton waited two decades for the imposition of justice that finally came early this morning,” Koster said.

Among those who sent letters to Nixon seeking clemency were Harvard School of Law Professor Charles Ogletree, the director of The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and Barbara Arnwine, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

“Mr. Taylor is also an appropriate candidate for clemency based on the transformation he has undergone in his time in prison. During his time at Potosi Correctional Center, Mr. Taylor has become active in prison ministry and has become a rock for the Christian community there. He has had no major conduct violations in recent years,” Ogletree wrote.  “Moreover, sometime ago, he reached out to the wife of his victim, Ms. Astrid Hooper and expressed his sincere remorse for his crimes and condolences for her loss.”

 Emily Wax-Thibodeaux is a National staff writer who covers veterans, veterans' affairs and the culture of government. She's an award-winning former foreign correspondent who covered Africa and India for nearly a decade. She also covered immigration, crime and education for the Metro staff.






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Stefanie Faucher
Communications Director
8th Amendment Project
sfau...@8thamendment.org
Mobile 510.393.4549
8thamendment.org