March 2005 FOR News

Death Penalty Report

Peace Issues Report

1. Help Halt March 15 Execution of Stanley Hall


2. U.S. Supreme Court Outlaws Juvenile Death Penalty


3. Free Showing of Documentary "Deadline" — chronicles the actions taken by former Illinois Gov. George Ryan when he commuted the death sentences of all Illinois death row prisoners


4. Good News on Death-Penalty Resistance from New Mexico, Kansas and New York


5. Information on extending support to Danny Wolfe, a Missouri prisoner most certainly wrongly convicted and sentenced to death and directions to help with his legal defense fund


6. Attend the Next Meeting of the mid-Missouri chapter’s Missouri Moratorium Campaign 7:00 pm. Tuesday 29 March, Conference Room B Columbia Library

1. Join Mid-MO Weekly Vigils for Peace


2. “TWO YEARS TOO MANY”: Peace Gathering and March in Columbia, Sunday MARCH 20th: On Sunday, March 20th the Columbia Peace Coalition will hold what we hope will be the largest peace gathering since the start of the war, 1:00 p.m. Courthouse Sq.; 2 p.m., short rally & march through downtown to the Military Recruiters’ offices on Broadway.


3. Join a Discussion:“The Military and Conscientious Objection” with FOR draft counselor, Jeff Stack. Free and open program, 7:30 p.m.. Monday 28 March, GCB 114- UMC campus, Co-sponsored by FOR & Students for Progressive Action.


4. “A Peoples' Travelogue.... Uruguay and an Election of Dreams,” reflections from Lorraine Caputo while traveling through South America and attending the presidential inaugural.


5. “Working for Peace, Paying for War?,” an essay on War Taxes and Resistance by Ruth O’Neil

What You Can Do

• Contact Gov. Matt Blunt. Urge him to halt Stanley Hall's Execution. Demonstrate his reverence for life and a sense of fairness. End the killing. Write: Gov. Blunt, Room 216, Capitol Bldg., Jefferson City MO 65101 Fax: 573-751-1495; Phone 573-751-3222


• Join Vigils for Life Tuesday March 15
  5:00- 6:00 p.m. Boone County Courthouse, Columbia
  6:30 p.m. St. Luke's United Meth. Church, 204 E. Ash,Columbia
  11:00 p.m.-Midnight State Capitol, High St., Jeff City


• Elsewhere around state, log onto www.moabolition.org

The crap shoot of state killings, some call “justice,” may resume in Missouri after a 1 ½ year hiatus. Officials are set to execute Stanley Hall, a few minutes after midnight on March 16. Mr. Hall confessed soon after he'd committed a contemptible crime: in January 1994, he pushed Barbara Wood off a bridge in downtown St. Louis into the Mississippi River. We mourn her death, all those whose lives are violently taken and extend condolences to those coping with such losses of loved ones. The Mid-MO FOR condemns all murder, including state killings. This case additionally reminds us why our state needs at least a three-year moratorium on executoins with a study commission to review various issues of the death penalty in Missouri.

Master Sergeant Don Honeycutt, who's retired from the Air Force and works with the JROTC program in the University City High School (near St. Louis), is among the multitudes hoping Gov. Matt Blunt commutes Mr. Hall's death sentence. Sgt. Honeycutt estimates he brought as many as 600 so-called “at-risk” students from his school alone to the Potosi Correctional Center over six years to meet with prisoners as part of the Youth Enlightenment Program. Mr. Hall, he says, was an integral member of that team. His scheduled execution “has been plaguing me.”

“I think he has made a big difference in the lives of many kids.”After visiting with Mr. Hall and other prisoners, Sgt. Honeycutt recalls seeing even the “hellions” among the students “having their whole demeaner changed. They'd say, things like 'Sarge, I never looked at things this way.'” Many of the kids coming to the prison “were doing the kind of things I was doing,” committing petty crimes, heavily using drugs, Mr. Hall recently told the FOR. “I let them know the path they were treading on would catch up with them. Either they'd end up in prison or the cemetery.”

Sadly, nothing can reverse the past. “If taking my life would bring her life back, I would have welcomed death 11 years ago.” Mr. Hall's remorse “could be a facade,” says Sgt. Honeycutt. “What I've seen, as he's talked to the kids though, makes me believe he is genuinely sorry for what he did.” There are also other issues of concern:

Lack or Proportionality
Mr. Hall and three other people randomly chose to steal Mrs. Wood's car in a St. Louis County-mall parking lot, to use in a retaliatory shooting against people who had recently shot Mr. Hall's cousin. They sought a car unidentifiable by the assailants. One of the four, Rance Burton forced Mrs. Wood at gunpoint to slide to the passenger seat as he drove. Mr. Hall followed in another car and later got into the back seat of her car. Mr. Burton stopped the car on the bridge, ordered her out. She grabbed on to the car. The two men got out to force her away, Mr. Burton shot at her several times, then drove away when another car approached. In a panic, Mr. Hall says he pushed Mrs. Wood off the bridge, was apprehended minutes later and confessed. Mr. Burton was never charged.

Geographic Arbitrariness
Mr. Hall's violence occurred in the city, but he was tried where the crime began, in the state's most death-penalty zealous jurisdiction, St. Louis County. UMC sociologists found from 1978-96, five times more homicides occurred in the city than the county, yet during that same period, 25 people were sentenced to death in the city court while 33 individuals, including Mr. Hall, were ordered killed by the St. Louis County Court.

Racism/Prosecutorial Misconduct
Mr. Hall agreed to a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty. As agreed, he took lie detector tests but the results came back inconclusive. Even though he later passed two tests, the prosecutor renigged, charging him with capital murder. More than 3/4's of all homicides which ultimately led to exeuctions in Missouri involved the murder of a Caucassian, although 60-percent of all homicide vicitims in the 1990's were African-Americans. Mr. Hall, like 40-percent of those setnecnced to death in Missouri, is African-American. Mrs. Wood was Caucassian. Prosecutors used pre-emptory challenges to strike all African-Americans from the jury, thus Mr. Hall was sentenced to death by an all-White jury. During the sentencing phase, the prosecutor coldly likened Mr. Hall to his pet dog which was afflicted with distemper. Both beings, he implied needed to be killed.