Category Archives: Crime-Courts

“Falsely playing the race card”

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A few weeks back I posted a few times on the Heather Ellis trial in Kennett, MO, my home town. The trial and the incident that started the whole thing (3 years ago?) left Kennett with a black eye (so to speak). The local prosecutor recused himself and Morley Swingle –the prosecuting attorney for Cape Girardeau County– took over. In an op-ed piece (?) in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mr. Swingle reflects on the trial and the incident that made it necessary:

“On a Saturday night in 2007 at the Wal-Mart in Kennett, Mo., Heather Ellis went into an angry tirade in the checkout line, grabbed another customer’s merchandise and pushed it away from the cash register, not just once, but four times.

When a manager told her to leave the store, she responded, “I’m not leaving and you can’t make me.” The police were called. They escorted her out of the store. Outside, she continued her angry rant. When an officer told her she would be arrested if she did not leave, she replied: “If you try to arrest me I’ll kick your [derriere].”

She was arrested. True to her word, she kicked the arresting officer and smacked another in the mouth, drawing blood.

Most people, after behaving so badly, would issue a few apologies and accept the prosecutor’s generous plea offer of probation to misdemeanor offenses. Instead, Ellis decided to claim to the national media that her arrest was based on “racism.”

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Anderson Cooper weighs in on race, justice and Kennett, MO

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My friend John just called report the Dunklin County courthouse in Kennett, Missouri (where I grew up), is surrounded by TV satellite trucks covering the trial of Heather Ellis. I posted on this a couple of weeks ago and have no idea what what really happened at the local Wal-Mart. I guess that’s what the trial is deciding. It sounds like CNN’s Anderson Cooper might have already have a verdict:

“… Kennett, Missouri has created both a pattern and practice of disparate treatment toward people of color. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the police of Kennett, Missouri search African Americans more than twice as often as whites (14% vs. 6%) even though they possess contraband at roughly the same rate (25% vs. 20%). Across the state of Missouri, African-Americans are searched almost twice as often as whites (12% vs. 7%), even though they are LESS likely to possess contraband (17% vs. 20%). Attorney General Eric Holder should get involved by conducting a thorough investigation of the entire Southeast Missouri judicial system.”

“My simple contention is this: Had Heather Ellis been a Duke Lacrosse player getting a little rowdy on spring break, I doubt very seriously that she would be facing this kind of prison time. America has a two-tiered justice system, where people of color are being given the bottom rung of the justice ladder. Our inability to let go of our racially horrific past is causing us to destroy our future. The Heather Ellis case is merely a symbol of a much larger problem.”

Story from yesterday on the Daily Dunklin Democrat website. I’ll update this with a verdict if and when there is one.

Missouri prison life in 1800’s

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The Twin Hells, by John N. Reynolds, claims to be “A Thrilling Narrative of Life in the Kansas and Missouri Penitentiaries.” I haven’t read the entire account yet but will share this excerpt about the Missouri penitentiary:

“The inmates of the Missouri penitentiary are well clothed. In this respect, this prison has no rival. All the prisoners presented the appearance of being cleanly, so far as their clothing is concerned. All are dressed in stripes. None are exempt. Here are nearly two thousand men on an equality. None of them can look down upon others, and say, I am more nicely dressed than you. I never saw a convict dude in the entire lot. The prisoners are well fed. For breakfast, the bill of fare consists of bread, coffee, without milk or sugar, and hash. There is no change to this bill of fare. If the prisoner has been there for ten years, if not in the hospital, he has feasted upon hash every morning. Boiled meat, corn bread, potatoes and water makes up the dinner, and for supper the convict has bread, molasses and coffee. The principal objection to this diet is its monotony. Whenever a change of diet becomes a strict necessity, the prisoner is permitted to take a few meals in the hospital dining-room. Here he receives a first-class meal. This is a capital idea. A great deal of sickness is prevented by thus permitting the convict to have an occasional change of diet. On holidays, such as Thanksgiving day, Christmas, etc., an extra dinner is given, which is keenly relished by all. I have before me a statement of the expenses for a Sunday breakfast and dinner. There are only two meals given on Sunday. The hash was made up of 612 pounds of beef, 90 pounds of bacon, and 30 bushels of potatoes. Fifty-one pounds of coffee were used, and four and a half barrels of flour. The entire meal cost $68.38.”

It appears the account above is from the late 1800’s. I have not idea of the time period represented by the postcard below (from Bob Priddy’s extensive collection of Missouri postcards)

Updating MissouriDeathRow.com

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MissouriDeathRow.com was one of the first websites I did. And it looks like it. This was before flickr and Typepad and such. So I’m doing a little make-over. Hope to have it complete by the end of the year.

I’m starting with images and documents related to those executed in Missouri’s gas chamber. First time out, I just posted photos of the condemned. This time I’m posting the… not sure what to call it… the record or card for each inmate [flickr slideshow].

I scanned these from the state archives. For some reason, I find them fascinating.

The state archive has a file on each of the inmates executed in the gas chamber. I spent a week going through these, scanning as much as time allowed. Letters, notes, telegrams…

On June 24, 1962, Odom and another Death Row inmate attempted an escape. Odom’s file contained a report by the guard on duty at the time. I’ve also included  (from his appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court) a description of the crime for which Odom was executed.

America’s prison for terrorists often held the wrong men

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An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.

“The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren’t “the worst of the worst.” From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn’t belong there.”

Stories like this one — and the way those accused respond to them — raise a troubling (to me) question about American journalism. Why can’t we have one news organization that everyone can agree is factual and fair. Just one. “Truthiness” is no longer a joke.

Somewhere in the White House and the Pentagon, men and women are figuring out ways to discredit this story and the people who reported it. I won’t try to list the tactics they employee because we are all too familiar with them.

And those who chose not to believe stories like this one need only the flimsiest excuse (“There goes the Liberal Media again.” or “Fox News says it’s not true.”).

Remember how skeptical the world was of the claims by German citizens that they didn’t know what was going on in the concentration camps?

“Whoa! Hold on there smays.com! You aren’t comparing Guantanamo to Auschwitz are you?”

No. I’m talking about what we, the American people, allow our government to do on our behalf. If we’ve been holding hundreds of innocent men for five or six years and –in some cases– torturing (I know, I know… water boarding is not torture) them, will our best explanation be, “We were at war.”

Ich bin beschämt

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison

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“More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released today.

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the United States leads the world in both the number and the percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving even far more populous China a distant second, noted the report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.” — Washington Post

What are you in for?

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A Wisconsin man convicted of beating his wife to death and forcing part of an Easter bunny-shaped dish down her throat was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without a chance at early release.

Patrick Zurkowski has maintained all along that he killed his wife June in self-defense after she came after him with a paring knife. He asked the court to “let him go” during a sentencing hearing, saying there’s no need for him to sit in jail for the rest of his life. [Wisconsin Radio Network/WSAU]

This reminds me of the story about the guy that tried to kill his wife (girlfriend?) by shoving her cell phone down her throat. His defense was she tried to swallow the phone to keep him from seeing who she’d been talking to. I thought I posted it but can’t locate.

If I didn’t have bad luck…

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Kennett (Missouri) police recently assisted a U. S. Marshal in apprehending 66-year-old Pearl Elizabeth Martin, who escaped from a Georgia prison. In 1969. How did they track Ms. Martin down? Last Wednesday afternoon, she backed into a parked Kennett police car that was parked in the Kennett City Hall parking lot. A computer check eventually revealed that she was wanted for the escape 40 years ago.

Chainsaw attack at homeless shelter

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“A man with a chainsaw attacked four people at KNLJ Channel 25 Saturday, leaving two critically injured. Police say twenty-eight year old Matthew Watkins is originally from the St. Louis area and authorities say he’s been staying at the homeless shelter that sits on the grounds of the T.V. station for the past couple weeks.

When deputies arrived on the scene just after two o’clock p.m.Saturday they found the suspect wielding a chainsaw.  Deputies then arrested the suspect at gunpoint.”

I only mention it because it happened just up the road in New Bloomfield. (For the record, I didn’t write the last sentence in the first ‘graph.)

Update: “One of our staff members apparently had a mental breakdown – I guess you could say he went ballistic,” Tom Branham, an employee, tells the Fulton Sun. “First he was running around poking people – he poked a guy in the neck with, I think, a pencil – then he came after people with a chainsaw.” [USA Today]