Constitutional Law

Race, Reasonable Doubt and Reggie Clemons

By Christopher Hill, Capital Punishment Project

The ACLU often provides examples of the problems with the capital punishment system in the United States. Reggie Clemons is scheduled for execution on June 17, 2009. Clemons, a black man, was convicted of the murder of two young white women in St. Louis in 1991. Clemons and two other black men were sentenced to death while a fourth person, a young white man was offered a plea deal and is out on parole. That is not the only race issue in the case. The original suspect, a white man and the cousin of the women, confessed to the crime after failing a lie detector test and changing his story several times. Clemons, the original suspect and another defendant all complained that the police beat them into confessions.

Redditt Hudson, Racial Justice Associate with the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, has written a piece published last week in the St. Louis American which explains the other issues in the case.

Full post as published by Blog of Rights on June 05, 2009 (boomark / email).