{"id":898623,"date":"2022-11-27T15:15:12","date_gmt":"2022-11-27T15:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=415326"},"modified":"2022-11-27T15:15:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-27T15:15:12","slug":"a-special-prosecutor-found-kevin-johnsons-case-was-tainted-by-racism-missouri-is-about-to-kill-him-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/11\/27\/a-special-prosecutor-found-kevin-johnsons-case-was-tainted-by-racism-missouri-is-about-to-kill-him-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"A Special Prosecutor Found Kevin Johnson\u2019s Case Was Tainted by Racism. Missouri Is About to Kill Him Anyway."},"content":{"rendered":"

G<\/span>rowing up, Khorry Ramey<\/u> didn\u2019t speak to her father about the day he would be put to death. \u201cIt was too uncomfortable for me,\u201d she said. Her dad, Kevin Johnson, was sent to Missouri\u2019s death row in 2007, when she was only 4 years old. As a child, she went to visit him at the Potosi Correctional Center, just over an hour from St. Louis. They played Scrabble and took Polaroid photos together, which could be purchased for a dollar apiece.<\/p>\n

When it came to Johnson\u2019s crime, there was not much to say that Ramey didn\u2019t already know. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that he\u2019d killed a police officer when he was 19. It wasn\u2019t easy, but \u201cit wasn\u2019t a secret,\u201d she said. Most importantly, it did not change who Johnson was to her. As Ramey got older, they talked about the ordinary things parents discuss with their kids: school, family, and his hopes for her future.<\/p>\n

But on New Year\u2019s Day 2022, when Ramey was 18, Johnson called her sounding different. \u201cHe was kind of like throwing hints at me,\u201d she said, suggesting that he might not be around for much longer. The conversation unnerved her. It seemed clear that he was trying to prepare her for an execution date.<\/p>\n

Later that night, Ramey found out she was pregnant. She worried about disappointing her dad; with his encouragement, Ramey had graduated early from high school and was studying to become a nurse. Under her red graduation gown, she\u2019d worn a T-shirt printed with a photo of her dad, along with her maternal grandmother and mother, who was murdered in front of Ramey just months before Johnson was convicted. \u201cI did it for y\u2019all,\u201d the T-shirt read.<\/p>\n

In late August, Ramey got a phone call from her aunt. She told Ramey that her father had received an execution date and warned her that it would be all over the news. Shortly afterward, Johnson called. \u201cThey came and got me and told me to pack all my stuff,\u201d he told her. His execution had been set for November 29.<\/p>\n

Ramey gave birth just two weeks later. On Facebook, she posted baby pictures of herself, her dad, and her son, whom she named Kaius. In October, she brought him to see Johnson, who was able to hold his grandson for the first time. \u201cThat was a very special moment,\u201d Ramey said.<\/p>\n

Ramey spoke to The Intercept over the phone in early November while doing a shift at the nursing home where she works. She had not discussed her father\u2019s looming execution date with her employer, let alone taking time off to deal with it. This was one of several logistical questions she was still figuring out. Another was even more daunting. At 19, she was too young to attend the execution under Missouri law. She did not know where she would be as the state took Johnson\u2019s life. It felt important to be at the prison. Even if her dad couldn\u2019t see her, Ramey said, \u201che would at least know that I\u2019m there with him in his final moments and he wasn\u2019t alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as Johnson\u2019s execution date got closer, Ramey decided that wasn\u2019t enough. On November 21, the American Civil Liberties Union filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri to intervene and allow her to attend the execution. \u201cMy father has been the only parent for almost all of my life,\u201d she wrote in a declaration to the court. \u201cHe is the most important person in my life. If my father were dying in the hospital, I would sit by his bed holding his hand and praying for him until his death, both as a source of support for him, and as a support for me as a necessary part of my grieving process.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Johnson\u2019s execution days away, a number of legal challenges are still pending before the courts. The most pressing is whether Johnson\u2019s conviction was unconstitutionally tainted by pervasive racism, as a special prosecutor appointed to review the case has determined; the prosecutor is now seeking to vacate Johnson\u2019s death sentence.<\/p>\n

In the 17 years since Johnson was sentenced to die, St. Louis County has become infamous for structural racism, most visible in its policing and prosecution practices. Johnson\u2019s case is emblematic of these dynamics and how the death penalty has been deployed to reinforce the status quo. To Johnson\u2019s attorney Shawn Nolan, the special prosecutor\u2019s findings mean Johnson\u2019s execution must not move forward. \u201cCivilized countries don\u2019t execute people based on the color of their skin,\u201d Nolan said, \u201cbut that is what the state of Missouri is about to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\"BamBamKid2-copy\"\n

Kevin Johnson\u2019s younger brother Joseph Long, whom everyone called Bam Bam.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Courtesy of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty<\/p><\/div>\n

The Crime<\/h2>\n

Nineteen-year-old Kevin Johnson was at his great-grandmother\u2019s house on July 5, 2005, when two police officers showed up, snooping around his white Ford Explorer. Johnson was on probation in connection with a domestic dispute involving his former girlfriend, the mother of his young daughter, Khorry. He had violated the terms of his probation, and the cops were looking to arrest him and perhaps tow his ride. Johnson didn\u2019t want that to happen, and he had an idea. He gave his car keys to his little brother Joseph Long, whom everyone called Bam Bam.<\/p>\n

Johnson and his siblings had been raised in difficult circumstances in Meacham Park, a predominantly Black neighborhood in wealthy, mostly white Kirkwood, Missouri, one of the many suburbs that sprawl west of St. Louis. Johnson\u2019s mother was addicted to crack, and his dad was incarcerated for most of Johnson\u2019s young life. Johnson and his siblings had been abused and neglected, at times left for days to fend for themselves. Johnson was particularly protective of 12-year-old Bam Bam, who\u2019d been exposed to cocaine in utero and was born with a congenital heart defect that required major surgery not long after his birth.<\/p>\n

Johnson asked Bam Bam to take the car keys next door, where his grandmother Pat Ward lived, to make it look like she owned the Explorer. Bam Bam got up and ran next door. As Johnson watched from the window, what he saw set off a chain reaction that he would forever regret. Ward came out of the house, keys in hand, Johnson later recalled, asking the cops to come quick: Bam Bam had passed out.<\/p>\n

Johnson couldn\u2019t see Bam Bam, but after the cops arrived at Ward\u2019s front door, he saw one of them step over something as he made his way inside. Sirens wailed as an ambulance approached along with a third cop, Kirkwood Police Sgt. William McEntee. Johnson\u2019s impulse was to race next door to help, but his family told him to stay put or risk arrest. When Johnson\u2019s mother, Jada Tatum, arrived, McEntee pushed her back, Johnson recalled, nearly knocking her off the porch. \u201cIt looked to me \u2026 like they was fighting, and I started to get mad,\u201d Johnson later testified. \u201cThen eventually my mom just stopped, she went into the yard and started crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly 20 minutes after the ambulance arrived, Johnson saw the first responders leaving with Bam Bam on a stretcher. His shirt was off, and his feet were dangling over the side.<\/p>\n

Not long afterward, Ward returned with the news that Bam Bam was gone. An autopsy later revealed that he\u2019d died of heart failure. Johnson was too shocked to react at first, he said. Then he became distraught, kicking the hinges off his bedroom door. If he hadn\u2019t asked Bam Bam to take the keys, maybe this wouldn\u2019t have happened, he thought. Why had the cops reacted so casually when Ward asked for their help? If Bam Bam had been taken to the hospital sooner, maybe he would be alive.<\/p>\n

Johnson went outside trying to clear his head. He removed a pistol from the back of his car and put it in his pocket; if the cops came back to tow the car, he later explained, the gun could put him in even bigger trouble. As Johnson wandered around on foot, people asked him if it was true that Bam Bam had died; news spread quickly through tight-knit Meacham Park. He told his cousin that he thought the cops were responsible.<\/p>\n

Around 7:30 p.m. McEntee was back in Meacham Park, responding to a call about someone setting off fireworks. He pulled his cruiser next to three boys, one of whom was carrying a spent firecracker. As he talked to them through the driver\u2019s side window, Johnson walked past on the passenger\u2019s side. He caught McEntee\u2019s eye, and the cop smiled at him. Johnson raised his gun. \u201cYou killed my brother,\u201d witnesses recalled him saying as he fired into the car, striking McEntee multiple times. One of the bullets tore through McEntee\u2019s cheek and lodged in his jaw.<\/p>\n\n

Although seriously wounded, McEntee was able to put the car into drive, lurching up the street before hitting a tree. Neighbors were screaming. Johnson ran into his mother, who asked him what he\u2019d done. The cops killed Bam Bam, he told her. No, she replied, Bam Bam just died. She started crying; what about his daughter, Khorry, she pleaded. Johnson remembers taking off running to see Khorry. Cutting through a path between two houses, he found himself back\u00a0by\u00a0McEntee\u2019s crashed car. The bloodied officer was kneeling on the pavement. Onlookers scattered as Johnson walked up behind McEntee and shot him in the head.<\/p>\n

McEntee was pronounced dead shortly afterward. Johnson fled in his Explorer, passing a stream of cop cars on their way to the scene. Only then did he understand what he had done, he later testified. When he turned himself in three days later, Johnson had one request: that police first let him see his toddler, Khorry. They refused.<\/p>\n

\n\"IMG_1285\"\n

A photo of Kevin Johnson from his elementary school yearbook.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Courtesy Pam Stanfield<\/p><\/div>\n

The Trials<\/h2>\n

McEntee\u2019s murder was front page news in St. Louis. Kirkwood had not seen a law enforcement officer killed in over 100 years, police told the press. The 43-year-old father of three had been with the Kirkwood police since the 1980s. Outside the police department, people left flowers and balloons on the lawn.<\/p>\n

St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch said he was considering seeking the death penalty against Johnson. During his 17 years in office, McCulloch had gained a reputation for winning death sentences \u2014 and having a personal stake in punishing cop killers. He was just 12 years old when his own father was killed in the line of duty; Paul McCulloch was \u201cone of the best known officers on the St. Louis police force,\u201d according to a 1964 news article that lauded him as a famed canine handler whose dog had a knack for sniffing out drugs. A Black man named Eddie Glenn was convicted and sentenced to death for McCulloch\u2019s murder. But after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty in 1972, the sentence was reduced to life.<\/p>\n

While the headlines trumpeted a possible death sentence against Johnson, many in Meacham Park felt that the full story surrounding McEntee\u2019s death was not being reported. Family members told a Black columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Johnson had been distraught by Bam Bam\u2019s death in part because police had been more focused on arresting him than helping his brother. After the columnist wrote about Bam Bam\u2019s funeral preparations, readers wrote in to say that the writer had \u201cslandered a fallen officer\u201d and \u201cexcused a killer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t try to help him because they was looking for me.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n

Johnson was tried twice, beginning in March 2007. The courtroom was packed with family members on both sides, along with a slew of police officers. In his opening statement to the jury, McCulloch acknowledged Bam Bam\u2019s death as the precursor to McEntee\u2019s murder. But he rejected the claim that police had failed to act quickly to help the child \u2014 or that McEntee had mistreated Tatum, Bam Bam\u2019s mother. An EMT testified that they were attempting lifesaving measures when Tatum approached, so he asked McEntee to sit with her on the porch.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, McCulloch rejected the notion that Johnson had acted impulsively, without premeditation. He argued that Johnson had taken the gun from his car with the explicit intent to kill a police officer and dismissed Johnson\u2019s claim that he had been en route to see his daughter when he came upon McEntee the second time. Johnson had returned to the scene after hearing that McEntee was still alive, McCulloch said, then ruthlessly finished the job. \u201cEach one of those shots, in and of itself, is deliberation,\u201d he told the jury.<\/p>\n

\n\"McEntee\"\n

A police department portrait of Sergeant William McEntee circa 2005.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Kirkwood Police Department<\/p><\/div>The testimony was graphic. McEntee\u2019s colleagues described the horror in vivid detail; one Kirkwood police officer struggled to speak as he described kneeling down to roll McEntee over, only to see pieces of his head fall onto his lap. A cousin of Johnson\u2019s said he vomited after witnessing McEntee get shot, prompting Johnson to call him a \u201cpussy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although most of the witnesses who knew Johnson said on cross-examination that they had never had problems with him before, McCulloch cast Johnson as a menace who would kill again if given the chance. Not only had he killed McEntee in cold blood, McCulloch said, but Johnson had also tried to murder witnesses who might testify against him.<\/p>\n

The evidence for this claim was thin. One witness, 19-year-old Anthony Davis, who knew Johnson from the neighborhood, had agreed to testify against Johnson only after being arrested at the courthouse, where investigators for McCulloch\u2019s office claimed that Davis was intimidating witnesses. No witnesses had complained of intimidation, yet Davis was thrown in jail and his bond was set at $100,000. On the stand at trial, Davis admitted that he was testifying in order to resolve his own legal troubles; his version of events clashed with what others said. In addition to claiming that he had seen Johnson\u2019s family members menacing witnesses, Davis testified that Johnson had told him on the day of the murder that he was going to kill the first cop he saw. A jailhouse informant with a long rap sheet also testified at length about an elaborate plot he\u2019d discussed with Johnson to have key witnesses killed.<\/p>\n

It was true that several witnesses seemed reluctant to testify against Johnson. Some had given statements to police, only to back off upon taking the stand. But while McCulloch told the jury that Johnson had threatened them, it was also plausible that witnesses had felt intimidated by police. One woman who was visiting family in Meacham Park on the night of the murder testified that contrary to what she told police, she had not seen Johnson shoot McEntee. \u201cI felt scared. I felt they was intimidating me, pressuring me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On March 31, Johnson took the stand. He recounted how he had seen police outside the house, how McEntee had manhandled his mother, and how shocked he was to hear that his brother was dead. He remembered telling his friends that the police had not done anything to help Bam Bam. \u201cThey didn\u2019t try to help him because they was looking for me,\u201d he said. When he saw McEntee smile at him from inside his police car, \u201cI flipped out, and I pulled out my gun, and I started shooting,\u201d he said. He could not explain what he was thinking. \u201cI was just in a trance.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCulloch mocked Johnson\u2019s \u201ctrance nonsense\u201d in his closing statement. But the defense said he was merely trying to find words to describe his tragic mistake. \u201cWhat he\u2019s talking about is acting without thinking,\u201d defense attorney Robert Steele said.<\/p>\n

Jurors found this position persuasive. When it came time to decide Johnson\u2019s fate, a majority believed that he was not guilty of first-degree murder. Deliberations were contentious, according to jurors who later gave statements to Johnson\u2019s appellate attorneys. One Black juror described a pair of white jurors who \u201ckept loudly repeating that they couldn\u2019t vote for 2nd degree because Kevin would get out and hunt them down.\u201d One of them \u201ckept yelling things about \u2018your neighborhoods\u2019 and \u2018you people\u2019\u201d when talking to Black jurors, he said.<\/p>\n

Another Black juror said that she had been called to speak to the trial judge after a white woman on the jury accused her of \u201cintimidating\u201d behavior. For all the talk of intimidation, the juror said, it was the heavy police presence that made her the most uneasy. \u201cWe were aware from the beginning of the trial that cops were going to be heavily packing the courtroom. I even had my neighbor drive me because someone warned me that cops would run my plates if I parked in the garage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s retrial took place later that year. Whereas the previous jury had been evenly split between Black and white jurors, this time the jury was made up of nine white and three Black jurors.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

There were other changes. McCulloch eliminated the jailhouse informant with the story about plotting to kill witnesses and added a video reenactment of the crime. He also bolstered testimony about the officers\u2019 efforts to save Bam Bam and emphasized that McEntee had not mistreated Johnson\u2019s mother. \u201cWas he very deferential to her?\u201d McCulloch asked one of the cops who responded to the scene. \u201cYes, he just tried to get her to go out of the house, and he was kind of holding on to her, trying to hold her up,\u201d the cop said. \u201cShe was very upset about her son.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCulloch\u2019s final witness at the retrial was St. Louis County Medical Examiner Mary Case, who described the damage each bullet had inflicted on McEntee. Using a model skeleton, she demonstrated where the bullets had entered his body, noting that McEntee might have survived some of the most severe injuries, but there was no way to survive being shot in the head.<\/p>\n

On November 8, 2007, the jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want you to think that because he had this horrible childhood that he shouldn\u2019t be punished appropriately.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n

The sentencing phase began immediately. McCulloch called McEntee\u2019s three siblings, who testified about the hole his death had left in their family.\u00a0His sister Cathy testified that after she gave birth to a daughter with a heart problem, McEntee had helped with the baby\u2019s tube feedings. \u201cHe was very supportive \u2014 and very supportive when I lost her,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In contrast, defense attorneys cast Johnson as an unwanted child who had never known a stable home. His grandmother described how 2-year-old Johnson used to come to her house looking for food because his mother was too incapacitated from drug abuse to properly care for him. Records from the Division of Family Services described how caseworkers found Johnson and an older brother living amid cockroaches; Johnson has since described chasing the insects for food. During his years in and out of institutions and group homes, he did not receive the therapy he needed to overcome the trauma of his early life. A psychiatrist who evaluated Johnson said he had attempted suicide when he was 14.<\/p>\n

McCulloch accused the defense of weaponizing Johnson\u2019s upbringing to deny justice to McEntee\u2019s family and the people of Meacham Park. \u201cThey want you to think that because he had this horrible childhood that he shouldn\u2019t be punished appropriately, that he does not deserve it,\u201d he said. The real problem, McCulloch insisted, was that Johnson did not take advantage of the opportunities he\u2019d been given.<\/p>\n

Before jurors voted to sentence her client to death, defense attorney Kelly Kraft suggested that there was more to the case than they had seen. A defense witness had testified about being pulled over by McEntee multiple times while living in Meacham Park. Although he seemed reluctant to go into detail, he described how McEntee had screamed at him after ordering him out of his car. Kraft said she thought \u201clong and hard\u201d about whether to call this witness. \u201cI don\u2019t like speaking ill of the dead,\u201d she said. But \u201cthere may be a side of Sergeant McEntee that his family didn\u2019t see. That\u2019s all I\u2019m going to say about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\"khorry-and-kevin-johnson\"\n

Kevin Johnson and his daughter, Khorry Ramey, at Missouri\u2019s Potosi Correctional Center on Oct. 18, 2022.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Courtesy of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty<\/p><\/div>\n

Meacham Park<\/h2>\n

Johnson had been on death row for seven years when McCulloch\u2019s name exploded onto the national stage in the wake of a different killing in St. Louis County. In 2014, a white police officer named Darren Wilson shot and killed an unarmed Black teenager named Michael Brown. The shooting in Ferguson sparked mass protests and added the call \u201cHands up, don\u2019t shoot\u201d to the lexicon of the nascent Black Lives Matter movement.<\/p>\n

McCulloch\u2019s handling of Wilson\u2019s prosecution would help turn the case into an emblem of institutionalized racism and impunity for violent cops. When\u00a0McCulloch announced<\/a> that a grand jury had declined to indict Wilson, he added fuel to the fire by blaming the media for the protests and declaring that the grand jurors, who were mostly white, \u201cgave up their lives\u201d to see the inquiry to its end.<\/p>\n

The Ferguson protests exposed long-simmering tensions over law enforcement\u2019s treatment of Black residents in St. Louis County. While the Department of Justice ultimately declined to file federal charges against Wilson, it found<\/a> that Ferguson police \u201croutinely\u201d violated Black residents\u2019 constitutional rights, using their powers to unlawfully detain and arrest residents in a scheme that prioritized revenue through fines and fees over the duty to ensure public safety. The department was not diverse, failed to engage with the community, ignored complaints of police misconduct, and engaged in practices that fostered \u201cdistrust and resentment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore there was a Ferguson, there was a Meacham Park.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n

Such police abuses \u2014 and the grievances they engendered \u2014 were not isolated to Ferguson. To longtime residents of St. Louis County like Michelle Smith, co-director of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Johnson\u2019s case can only be fully understood in the context of the community\u2019s relationship to police. \u201cBefore there was a Ferguson,\u201d Smith said, \u201cthere was a Meacham Park.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then surrounded by fields and forests, Meacham Park was established in 1892 as an unincorporated Black enclave roughly 14 miles southwest of St. Louis. The dirt streets were named after prominent people and places in Black history. Although it lacked running water and sewers, by the early 20th century, Meacham Park was thriving<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But as suburban developments proliferated, weak state law governing the establishment of new municipalities left Meacham Park vulnerable, sparking a protracted tug of war over annexation by wealthy, white Kirkwood. Colin Gordon, a history professor at the University of Iowa who has written about race and inequality in St. Louis County, described how municipal boundary-making was used as a tool of segregation. \u201cYou fragment local citizenship in such a way that some people get surveilled by the state and some people get served by the state,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n

In the late 1950s, Kirkwood made its first land grab, annexing a valuable commercial strip of Meacham Park, for which the community got nothing in return. In 1956, Interstate 44 sliced through the community, paving over homes and leaving a wedge of the neighborhood stranded. Meanwhile, Kirkwood officials were wringing their hands: They didn\u2019t want responsibility for providing services to Meacham Park, but they also didn\u2019t want the area\u2019s perceived problems coming into Kirkwood. As city leaders put it in a proposed action plan<\/a> in 1966, \u201cMosquitoes, bred in the failing septic tanks in Meacham Park, or potential criminals, raised in an atmosphere devoid of police protection, are not respecters of municipal boundary lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1991 the residents of Meacham Park finally agreed to an annexation plan. The promise was that commercial development along a discrete swath of its western edge would provide jobs for residents and bring in revenue needed for Kirkwood to extend services across the area. The promise was hollow: The development\u2019s footprint ballooned, swallowing 100 homes and displacing residents for what in the end was a wall of big-box stores that only further isolated Meacham Park from the rest of Kirkwood.<\/p>\n

The \u201cracial, spatial, political climate of that place made it ripe for people to lose in different ways.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n

In every practical sense, the first \u201cservice\u201d to fully encompass Meacham Park was policing \u2014 or, more accurately, over-policing, which manifested itself in many of the same ways that would later be identified in Ferguson. \u201cTo be the subject of neglect and harassment simultaneously definitely set up a lot of harm in that community,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

This dynamic was entrenched long before Johnson shot McEntee in July 2005. Court filings in Johnson\u2019s case include affidavits from relatives and community members who described relentless police surveillance in Meacham Park. Patrol cars were omnipresent, and neighbors were hassled for minor infractions or questioned for seemingly no reason at all. In his affidavit, Dameion Pullum, a childhood friend of Johnson\u2019s, said the cops once maced a group of kids for hanging out in a church parking lot after a high school football game and harassed Johnson\u2019s grandmother\u2019s husband for waxing his car in the driveway.<\/p>\n

Several of the affidavits specifically named McEntee as contributing to the harassment. Pullum said McEntee was known as \u201cTackleberry\u201d because \u201che was big, and he would tackle and beat people up.\u201d Romona Miller, who was a science teacher at Kirkwood High School in 2005, told the Riverfront Times<\/a> that students shared stories about \u201cMac\u201d \u2014 including that he had escalated one encounter to the point that another officer had to intervene. \u201cI had never heard the kids talk specifically about a person, so that was concerning to me,\u201d Miller told the weekly. She said she contacted the Kirkwood police with her concerns but never heard back. \u201cI often wonder, if that had been taken more seriously, we could have avoided a lot of this.\u201d (A KPD spokesperson told the St. Louis Beacon that the chief had no recollection of Miller\u2019s complaint. \u201cHe\u2019s not saying it didn\u2019t happen,\u201d the spokesperson said<\/a>. \u201cWe get a lot of complaints.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Smith stressed that reports of McEntee\u2019s misconduct were not meant to \u201ccondone killing. We wish that McEntee was still here.\u201d Still, she was blunt about the role he and other cops played in Meacham Park. \u201cThe reality of the situation is he was a terrorist in that community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrea Boyles, a sociology and Africana studies professor at Tulane University, interviewed Meacham Park residents about their experiences with police for her doctoral dissertation. That work later became the book \u201cRace, Place, and Suburban Policing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

There had been a \u201clong-standing racial contention between Meacham Park and Kirkwood,\u201d Boyles said, and \u201cultimately, there were a number of things that transpired \u2026 ranging from full loss of land and people losing their homes or being bought out, feeling like they had been manipulated\u201d in the annexation process. Their distrust of the police was perhaps just the most visible manifestation of the disenchantment. \u201cWhat they reported to me wasn\u2019t just isolated to or told about the police, it was about the entire process, which included the city council,\u201d she said, \u201cand them already feeling like, in many respects, that they had been \u2026 indifferently characterized as baggage or weight or throwaways that needed to be saved by the neighboring rich white people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Residents told her that in the wake of violent incidents like McEntee\u2019s killing, they felt that the whole community was being indicted, as if at fault for what happened. The \u201cracial, spatial, political climate of that place made it ripe for people to lose in different ways,\u201d Boyles said. \u201cAnd the results of that, unfortunately, and without justifying or condoning, would be the loss of many lives. And the fact that we are now possibly facing another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\"FERGUSON,\n

St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell gives remarks during the mayoral inauguration ceremony for Ella James at the Urban League Empowerment Center in Ferguson, Mo., on June 17, 2020.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Michael B. Thomas\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

A Cloud Over the Case<\/h2>\n

In the wake of Ferguson, voters ousted McCulloch, who had spent nearly 30 years in office, and elected a reform candidate. Former public defender and Ferguson City Council Member Wesley Bell became St. Louis County\u2019s first Black elected prosecutor<\/a>. In 2019, Bell launched a Conviction and Incident Review Unit, tasked with reviewing officer-involved shootings, allegations of police misconduct, and claims of wrongful prosecution or conviction \u2014 a deliberate departure from the status quo under McCulloch. \u201cWe know the same-old, same-old approach that we see incarcerating people based on their socio-economic stature, their zip code, their status, their race, their gender \u2014 that doesn\u2019t work,\u201d Bell told The Intercept<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

While wrongful convictions are a persistent problem within the criminal legal system, until last year<\/a>, Missouri prosecutors lacked a meaningful way<\/a> to revisit a conviction they believed was wrongly obtained. In 2021, state legislators passed a law<\/a> intended to fix the problem; by statute, prosecutors may, \u201cat any time,\u201d file a motion to vacate a conviction in the court where the defendant was originally tried. The trial court is required to hold a hearing to determine if \u201cconstitutional error at the original trial \u2026 undermines the confidence in the judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December 2021, Johnson\u2019s lawyers asked prosecutors to review his conviction, which they argued was unconstitutionally tainted by racial bias. There was an immediate issue, however: Steele, one of Johnson\u2019s defense attorneys at trial, now works for Bell, creating a conflict of interest. In July, Bell\u2019s office wrote to the Missouri Supreme Court, explaining that the office was reviewing Johnson\u2019s case and looking for a special prosecutor to head up the inquiry. Prosecutors asked the court to refrain from setting an execution date. The court disregarded the request, setting Johnson\u2019s execution for November.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnconstitutional racial discrimination infected this prosecution.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n

Nonetheless, in October, the St. Louis County Circuit Court appointed Kansas City attorney Edward Keenan as special prosecutor. Keenan reviewed more than 31,000 pages of documents related to the case, and in mid-November, he filed a motion with the trial court seeking to vacate Johnson\u2019s conviction. \u201cUnconstitutional racial discrimination infected this prosecution,\u201d he wrote, \u201cand this error requires the judgment to be set aside.\u201d The murder of McEntee was \u201chorrific,\u201d and his family deserved justice. \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d McCulloch \u201cdid not pursue that justice according to law,\u201d Keenan wrote. \u201cThe law requires this court to \u2026 order a new trial that adheres to constitutional standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the evidence laid out in Kennan\u2019s motion was a memo he found within the prosecution\u2019s files that showed McCulloch\u2019s team had schemed to eliminate Black jurors from Johnson\u2019s second trial. And he pointed to a speech McCulloch gave to the Oregon District Attorneys Association as evidence of racial animus. A week after he lost his primary race to Bell, McCulloch spoke at the association\u2019s summer conference, where he aired his grievances about the unrest in Ferguson and showed a seemingly random photo of a group of young Black people standing together, telling the audience, \u201cThis is what we\u2019re dealing with.\u201d A number of prosecutors were stunned by the presentation. \u201cI found Mr. McCulloch\u2019s remarks to be offensive and unprofessional,\u201d Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill told Willamette Week<\/a>. \u201cThe implication was that these kids were thugs,\u201d Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel said of the photo. \u201cI was bothered by the implicit nature of his words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps most revealing is McCulloch\u2019s history of charging decisions \u2014 an area where prosecutors have complete discretion. McCulloch prosecuted five police officer killings during his tenure. Four of them involved Black defendants; in each, McCulloch sought the death penalty. The fifth case involved a white defendant named Trenton Forster. In that case, McCulloch sought life. Forster\u2019s conduct was far more aggravated than that of the other defendants, Keenan found. Among other things, Forster had bragged on social media about wanting to kill cops, suggesting that his attack was premeditated. Nonetheless, McCulloch took the extraordinary step of giving Forster\u2019s public defender nearly a year to provide mitigating evidence that might convince McCulloch not to seek a death sentence. McCulloch did not offer this opportunity to any of the Black defendants.<\/p>\n

Over the course of his career, McCulloch was far more likely to seek the death penalty in cases where the victim was white, according to a recent study<\/a>\u00a0by Frank Baumgartner, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Baumgartner analyzed\u00a0408 death penalty-eligible murder cases from St. Louis County between 1991 and 2018 at the behest of Johnson\u2019s legal team.\u00a0He found that even after controlling for various circumstances, McCulloch\u2019s office was 3.5 times more likely to seek death when the victim was white.<\/p>\n

While two-thirds of victims in all eligible cases were Black, 62 percent of the cases ending in a death sentence involved white victims. Baumgartner\u2019s analysis suggested that McCulloch set the bar higher when considering cases involving Black victims, seeking death more frequently when there were multiple victims. The same was not true where white victims were concerned, Baumgartner wrote: \u201cA single white victim suffices.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCulloch did not respond to emails from The Intercept requesting comment. In a recent interview<\/a> with the Riverfront Times, McCulloch defended his record and denied allegations of racially motivated prosecutions. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that you can\u2019t do the job that I did for as long as I did it and not have some people think that you\u2019re a terrible person,\u201d he said. \u201cYou just can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis court should consider the special prosecutor\u2019s motion to vacate for what it is: the state\u2019s confession of error.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n

Despite Missouri\u2019s requirement that the trial court hold a hearing on the evidence, St. Louis County Presiding Judge Mary Elizabeth Ott denied<\/a> Keenan\u2019s motion the day after he filed it. In a subsequent order<\/a>, Ott acknowledged that while capital punishment \u201cis different from all other punishments\u201d and \u201crequires particular care in its application,\u201d there was nonetheless \u201cinsufficient time\u201d to conduct a thorough hearing before Johnson\u2019s scheduled execution, which she said she had no power to stay.<\/p>\n

Both Keenan and Johnson\u2019s attorneys appealed the ruling to the Missouri Supreme Court, asking it to halt the execution so that the lower court could hold a hearing on the evidence. \u201cThis court should consider the special prosecutor\u2019s motion to vacate for what it is: the state\u2019s confession of error,\u201d which has not been contested, Johnson\u2019s lawyers wrote<\/a>. \u201cThe state admits long-standing and pervasive racial bias in St. Louis County\u2019s handling of this case and other death-eligible prosecutions, including the office\u2019s decisions of which offense to charge, which penalty to seek, and which jurors to strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless this court stays the execution,\u201d Keenan wrote<\/a> in his appeal, \u201cthe result in this case will forever have this cloud over it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Missouri Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on November 28, the day before Johnson is set to die.<\/p>\n

\n\"johnson_embed\"\n

Kevin Johnson pictured on death row at Missouri\u2019s Potosi Correctional Center in 2022.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Courtesy of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty<\/p><\/div>\n

Witnessing Death<\/h2>\n

Two days before Thanksgiving, Rep. Cori Bush, who represents St. Louis, sent a letter<\/a> alongside her Kansas City colleague Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. They urged Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to grant Johnson clemency. \u201cJohnson\u2019s cruel execution will not solve any of the systemic problems facing Missourians and people all across America, including the scourge of gun violence,\u201d they wrote. \u201cIt will simply destroy yet another family and community while using the concepts of fairness and justice as a cynical pretext.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter drew from Johnson\u2019s clemency petition, which emphasized his youth at the time of the crime. In 2005, the same year that Johnson killed McEntee, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed death sentences for people who committed capital crimes before the age of 18. The ruling in Roper v. Simmons<\/a> was based on scientific research revealing the extent to which the human brain develops throughout a person\u2019s teenage years. It is now well-established that the parts of the brain guiding impulse control continue to form well into early adulthood, and that factors like poverty, abuse, and neglect profoundly impact such development. Earlier this year, the American Psychological Association concluded that the prohibitions established by Roper should also apply to people between the ages of 18 and 20 \u2014 the age Johnson was in 2005.<\/p>\n

Although Parson has not made an official announcement regarding clemency, he told reporters<\/a> on November 23 that he did not intend to intervene.<\/p>\n

Today, Johnson\u2019s record behind bars is a testament to the way young people mature beyond their crimes. At Potosi, he is considered a \u201cmodel inmate,\u201d according to his clemency petition, which included dozens of letters from incarcerated men who described him as a mentor and role model. Among Johnson\u2019s most vocal supporters are a group of educators who have maintained since his trial that Johnson was a good kid who committed a tragic act of violence on one of the worst days of his life. Pam Stanfield, his elementary school principal, who has grown especially close to Johnson over the years, described him as a devoted father whose relationship with Ramey \u201cfar exceeds what many fathers are able to do while living outside prison walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a phone call, Stanfield emphasized that Johnson had expressed deep remorse for killing McEntee. \u201cHe would give anything if he could go back and do something differently,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd yet he\u2019s so much more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the morning after Thanksgiving, Johnson\u2019s attorneys organized a press conference to discuss Ramey\u2019s fight to witness her father\u2019s execution. Ramey had planned to give a statement but struggled to speak. She asked Smith, of\u00a0Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, to read the rest of what she\u2019d written.\u00a0\u201cI have suffered so much loss in my life,\u201d the statement read, recalling how Ramey had seen her mother killed when she was 4 years old. It was excruciating to think that she would not be there to see her sole surviving parent in his final moments. \u201cIf the state of Missouri thinks that my father\u2019s actions at age 19 make him mature enough to be executed, then it makes no sense that under Missouri law an adult who is 19 is not mature enough to be present at that person\u2019s execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

A federal judge rejected Ramey\u2019s legal challenge later that evening. He found that Missouri had a valid interest in preventing teenagers from \u201cwitnessing death.\u201d He cited a landmark Supreme Court case reining in life sentences for youth, which was rooted in the same scientific research that led to Roper in 2005. Young people \u201cmay be more inclined to act out in ways that are disruptive,\u201d he wrote, threatening the \u201csolemnity and decorum\u201d of the execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are heartbroken for Khorry,\u201d said Nolan, Johnson\u2019s attorney. \u201cEvery aspect of this case is a tragedy, but we promise Khorry that we are not done fighting for her father.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post A Special Prosecutor Found Kevin Johnson\u2019s Case Was Tainted by Racism. Missouri Is About to Kill Him Anyway.<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Johnson is facing execution for killing a cop when he was 19. A special prosecutor says his sentence should be vacated.<\/p>\n

The post A Special Prosecutor Found Kevin Johnson\u2019s Case Was Tainted by Racism. Missouri Is About to Kill Him Anyway.<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,2851],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898623"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":902736,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898623\/revisions\/902736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}