Below are some reflections I wrote  about Fr. Carl Kabat 's court appearance.  Beneath that you will find a copy of the statement he had prepared to read in court. Let us do all we can nonviolently to end the death penalty and other inequities in our state and broader world. 

In solidarity, reverence for life and peace, 
Jeff Stack
Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation, coordinator 

Fr. Carl Kabat Faces Trespassing Charges in Protest of Marlin Gray's October Execution

Bonne Terre Municipal Court Hearing 14 December 2005

Notes/Reflections

The Bonne Terre municipal judge automatically asked the defendant who stood before him, just as he had, probably thousands of time before: “Do you plead guilty or not guilty?”

Fr. Carl Kabat was charged with trespassing when he tried to enter the state prison, late the evening of Oct. 25 and halt the execution of Marlin Gray. State officials detained the 72-year old priest and later did kill Marlin, making him the 66th person executed in Missouri since 1989.

In the municipal court, Fr. Kabat responded clearly, “I plead for the state to stop executing people.”

Dumbfounded, Judge Shawn McCarver asked the prosecutor to explain the specifics of the charge, then paused, realizing this would not be the typical traffic or petty crime case he'd be hearing. ”Put it on recall,” he told the court clerk, explaining that he would first address the cases of the other five dozen people who were waiting to be moved up to his bench in assembly line fashion.

The “courtroom” and town offered glimpses of the poverty in rural Missouri and other parts of the country-- helping to explain why business leaders often aggressively vie for having prisons built in their rural communities. (Bonne Terre, Potosi and Farmington all have prisons near or in their towns. All are within one of Missouri's old “lead belts,” a region where the latter phase of the “boom-and-bust” mining cycle has been the reality). Throughout the town were vacant offices and businesses. One nook of a shop was named something like “The New Store in Town.” Its owner told me she sold new items as opposed to most of the few downtown shops which specialized in used goods. Most all the people appearing before the judge were dressed in worn jeans or causal attire; the only man wearing a suit was the prosecuting attorney. Some of the couple dozen who couldn't make a payment to the court or needed an extension to pay spoke of being laid off from jobs. A few hadn't yet found work.

Appearing more like the bus station of a small town or a work site break-room, the 25' X 15' utilitarian court has worn indoor-outdoor carpet, a low ceiling with stained Styrofoam panels, folding chairs and tables and a sheet rock-front “bench” with veneer-trim for the judge, instead of hardwood and marble. On the wall behind him hung a poster of the U.S. presidents, curiously ending with (perhaps as an homage to local officials' most-favored executive?) Ronald Reagan. No portraits were included of presidents Bush, Clinton nor Bush, Jr. The collection prompts a supposition that perhaps that was economically, the stagnating point. I later learned though, the town's lead mining operation shut down in the early 1960's after a 100-year run. All that remains of the extractive legacy is the downtown mining museum and a stark, toxic tailings-pile over 100 yards long and more than 50 feet high-- the largest structure on the town's horizon.

Nearly three hours passed since Fr. Kabat first went before the judge. The only people left in the room were court officials, local police officers, the priest and his supporters, Kristin Parker of the St. Louis Catholic Worker community and myself. Judge McCarver, who wore no robe, just dress slacks, a long-sleeve shirt and loosely tightened tie, apologized for the delay, then asked him to restate his plea. “It's a creative plea. I plead for the state to stop murdering people.”

The judge chuckled in exasperation, “Look, I'm only a lowly municipal judge, dealing with Bonne Terre city ordinances.” He mentioned this was the first time in his 22 years as a judge that he'd had to deal with anybody committing such a protest. “I feel sort of blindsided.” Fr. Kabat mentioned that so long as the prison's in the city limits and continues to house the state death chamber, he should be prepared for others to come before his court as they hopefully participate in such nonviolent resistance. Judge McCarver said the local police could have instead filed their charges with the St. Francois County court in Farmington. He expressed hope that would be the case in possible future cases.

Carl requested the court accept a “Nolo Contendere” plea, essentially not arguing about the facts of what the state says he did, yet declining to accede his actions constituted a crime. The judge said such a plea wasn't available in municipal court. After conferring with us, Fr. Kabat agreed to plead “not guilty” and request a jury trial. Judge McCarver said he'd pass along that information to the St. Francois County prosecutor, who would decide whether to drop the trespassing charges or summon the priest for a hearing and trial.

We then engaged in about 10-15 minute discussion with the judge about the death penalty. The judge mentioned that Missouri law sanctions the death penalty. “Slavery and segregation were also legal at one time in this country as well,” Fr. Kabat noted. I added, it's kind of bizarre from my perspective that county prosecutors and officials all over the state pursue death sentences then send those condemned individuals into the state prisons and the Bonne Terre prison where they are ultimately executed. If the local county officials support such a punishment, perhaps they and other state officials really ought to execute the people themselves and not pass on the vile deed for people at this prison. The judge said he couldn't express his opinion from the bench, but he wished Fr. Kabat luck in his efforts.

We will pass along updates of what transpires next.

________________________________

 December 14th 2005

Public Statement of Carl Kabat, OMI

             I am  72 years old and have been a Catholic priest for 47 years.  I remember very clearly that when the now dead Pope John Paul II came to your state, the then Governor Carnahan commuted the sentence of one to be murdered the day after the Pope’s arrival, to life imprisonment without parole.

            The death penalty is legalized murder—one of the most heinous state sponsored evils of our time.  Most of us know that we are the only developed country in the world that officially still murders people.  Canada, England, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, etc do not. To honor my relationship with God and my sisters and brothers, I acted on October 25th 2005.

            I remember very clearly the effects of another state sponsored evil of my time—discrimination against people of color.  I was born and raised in southern Illinois just across the river from here and remember when I was in my first, second or third year of high school that the swimming pools in St. Louis were first integrated.

            I remember when I was a young man of 20, taking a train from St. Louis to New Orleans, and when I arrived in New Orleans being surprised  when I saw a sign saying “black water”, “white water.” I probably did not even drink but I wish that I had drunk at a “black water” fountain.

            I remember as a young seminarian about 50 years ago, during a national election, that when we students went to vote I was given a law book and asked to write what Law 1013 said.  I and others wrote “the law explains itself” and I and others were able to vote. Later, I read in the newspaper that a black lawyer failed that “literacy test.”

            Unfortunately, as a voting priest in my 20s and 30s , stationed along the border between the US and Canada at International Falls, MN during the 60s, I did not march with  M.L.King,  and others or sit in the back of the bus with the blacks.  In my 72 years of life that is one of the things that I am least proud of.

            My father, for eight years was a “turn key” – then called “guards” and now called “corrections officers” at Menard State Penitentiary in Chester, IL.  My mother said that those were the most unhappy years of his life.  If I remember correctly, my father was offered to pull one of the three (execution) switches, but he declined. He was only maybe a grade five graduate but, among other things, I am proud that he said “No.”

            I do not know if he ever knew of the Dred Scott Decision* which took place only 65 miles from home and about an hour North of here, but I do.

            All that is needed for evil to be victorious is for good people to do nothing.

            I was very happy that I was arrested for resistance to state sponsored evil on the same day that I learned that Rosa Parks—who also was arrested for resisting state sponsored evil of her time—had died.

            From the news after her death, I learned that four others before Rosa Parks had also resisted state sponsored evil and also had been arrested.  I had known of two; Claudette Colvin and Mary Ware, but I have never heard or read the names of the other two people.

            These resisters, along with many others involved in the Civil Rights Movement, stood in opposition to the state’s unjust laws so that evil would not be victorious..  I am here today, as I was on October 25th, to stand in opposition to the evil of state sponsored murder, with the hope that evil would not be victorious. I believe that Jesus was legally crucified. The Romans are said to have crucified a thousand in one day. Everything that Hitler did was legal. The great evils of modern history have all been “legal”: slavery, segregation and apartheid have been legal but that does not make them morally correct.

            The author John has Pilate asking “What is truth?”  And then had the one to whom the question was addressed crucified.

            What is Truth? (God is Truth, God is Justice) And we can deny both.

            All that I want to say in this statement is what I had written on the two signs that I hung around my neck on October 25th:
             STOP THE MURDER
            THOU SHALL NOT KILL
 -                     IN PRISON
-                     IN WAR
-                     IN CRIME
-                     OR ANYTIME

            Shakespeare has Mark Anthony, after the murder of Caesar, say of Brutus: “For he is an honorable man.” The judge who sentenced Franz Jaegarstaetter to be beheaded for refusing service under Hitler cried when he sentenced Franz.  I am surer that he too was an honorable man.

            The governor who refused to stop the murder—which he could have commuted—and all those along the murder trail  are I am sure honorable men.  And as Shakespeare said: “…and so are we all honorable men and women.”

Carl Kabat, OMI

 : *   Dred Scott first went to trial to sue for his freedom in 1847. Ten years later, after a decade of appeals and court reversals, his case was finally brought before the United States Supreme Court. In what is perhaps the most infamous case in its history, the court decided that all people of African ancestry -- slaves as well as those who were free -- could never become citizens of the United States and therefore could not sue in federal court. The court also ruled that the federal government did not have the power to prohibit slavery in its territories. Scott, needless to say, remained a slave..”.
[African in America Resource Bank]