Missouri pressured to halt execution of black man sentenced by all-white jury

Jay Nixon, the Democratic governor of Missouri, is coming under intense pressure to stay the imminent execution of an African American man who was sentenced to death by an all-white jury in St Louis County – the jurisdiction that covers Ferguson, scene of last summer’s dramatic unrest over state-sanctioned racial discrimination.

Barring last-minute intervention by Nixon or the US supreme court, Andre Cole, 42, will be killed by lethal injection at 6pm local time on Tuesday in a case that displays disturbing signs of racial animus. All three potential black jurors were removed from the jury pool at the demand of St Louis County prosecutors, who secured a death sentence from the resulting panel of 12 white men and women.

Such controversial circumstances have provoked a flurry of 11th-hour protests, including appeals to Nixon that he use his governor’s prerogative to stop the execution. The complaints are all the more charged coming from the county of Ferguson which August erupted in prolonged clashes between protesters and police after the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.

“This case highlights the disparate treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system. Ferguson exposed unequal treatment by police, and the pending execution of Andre Cole exposes the same disparity from prosecutors and the courts,” said Elston McCowan of the Missouri branch of the NAACP.

A coalition of civil rights activists, African American organizations and religious leaders have written to Nixon demanding an official inquiry into what they claim is rampant and systemic racial bias within St Louis County that has put a vastly disproportionate number of black men on to death row. The investigation would ensure, the 60 signatories write, “that racial bias has not infected the death sentences imposed in St Louis County”.

The numbers speak for themselves. Eleven death row prisoners were prosecuted in St Louis County. Of those, seven or 64% are black, in stark contrast to the general population of the area which is 24% African American.

Behind those startling figures lie evidence of racial distortions in the way that juries are configured. Evidence has been presented to court in seven separate death penalty cases in Missouri in which potential black jurors were struck off for no apparent reason.

Cole was convicted in 2001 for murdering the boyfriend of his former wife. Of the three potential black jurors struck off by St Louis County prosecutors, one was removed on grounds that he was divorced – even though a white divorcee was put on the final panel. “Prosecutors were asked to explain why they had struck off the black jurors, and the reasons they gave don’t hold up very well when you read the record,” said Cole’s attorney, Joseph Luby of the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic.

The most egregious example of jury-rigging in St Louis County has been the so-called “postman gambit” where black people have been routinely prevented from joining juries in capital cases because they worked for the US postal service. No justification has ever been presented in court for such exclusions, though civil rights observers have noted that a high proportion of post office workers are black.

The “postman gambit” was used in 1992 to remove a black “mail sorter” from the jury in the case of convicted murderer Herbert Smulls. The resulting all-white jury duly sentenced Smulls to death, and he was executed last year.

Similar tactics were used in 2001 during the elimination of six out of seven potential black jurors – one of whom was a postal worker - in the trial of Marcellus Williams. He was sentenced to death by a jury of 11 white and one black juror, and is currently awaiting execution.

In a third case, also emanating from St Louis County, Kimber Edwards was put on death row by an all-white jury after all three potential black candidates – including a postal worker – were struck off the panel. Edwards was scheduled to be executed by Missouri next month, but the death warrant has been lifted for technical reasons.

Missouri is not alone in standing accused of manipulating juries along racial lines. A similar pattern is discernible across the active death penalty states. A study by the Equal Justice Initiative found that potential black jurors have routinely been prevented from participating in capital trials, with some counties striking off up to 80% of all African American candidates.

“We cannot continue on a path that stretches back to before the civil war of lynch mob justice in which all-white juries sentence African Americans to death. That has to stop,” said Staci Pratt of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Reverend Harold Ellis, pastor of Clayton Baptist Church in St Louis, said that if Cole’s execution went ahead it would aggravate the tensions that had come to the surface during the Ferguson troubles. “If Governor Nixon allows the execution to go forward he will be creating more problems, not just for Ferguson.”