By Berl Falbaum
At about 6:35 p.m. (EDT) on September 20, 2024, the State of South Carolina plunged an IV into the veins of Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, known as Freddie Owens, and injected the deadly drug pentobarbital into his veins. Within minutes he was dead.
Four days later, the State of Missouri injected five grams of the same drug into the bloodstream of Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams. He was dead in minutes as well.
Owens, 46, and Williams, 55, had three other things in common: Both had been convicted of murder, both might very well have been innocent, and, in both cases, the appellate powers to be, including the U.S. Supreme Court, rejected pleas to stay the executions to permit investigations into new evidence.
Thus, works our “justice” system.
Let’s look at Owens first.
Owens was convicted of killing a Speedway gas station clerk, Irene Graves, a 41-year-old single mother of three, during a string of robberies by two masked men on Halloween night in 1997.
Owens, then only 19, allegedly fired a single shot to Graves’s head, killing her because she couldn’t open the safe. The two robbers escaped with $37.29 from the cash register.
Prosecutors had no forensic evidence implicating Owens and surveillance footage showed two masked men but they were not identifiable. The only evidence against Owens came from Owens’ accomplice and co-defendant, Steven Golden, who testified that Owens fired the fatal shot.
Not revealed to the jury during the trial was that Golden had a secret deal with prosecutors that he would not face the death penalty if he testified against Owens.
But two days before the execution, Golden made public a signed affidavit in which he said that Owens was innocent. He wrote:
“I’m coming forward now because I know Freddie’s execution date is September 20 and I don’t want Freddie to be executed for something he didn’t do. This has weighed heavily on my mind and I want to have a clear conscience.”
Golden added that Owens was not even in the store at the time of the murder/robbery.
Goden said he was high when police questioned him and was pressured to point the finger at Owens.
“I substituted [Owens] for the person who was really with me,” Golden said, concealing the identity of the real murderer because he feared his associates “might kill me.” He still did not want to name the shooter out of fear of retaliation.
The governor, Henry McMaster, prosecutors and appeals courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court (with Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting), rejected last minute appeals to save his life, stating that despite new evidence, they were all convinced other evidence proved Owens guilty. They stated there was “nothing exceptional” -- the legal standard to approve a stay of execution -- about his case.
Now, to Williams.
Williams was convicted of killing Felicia Gayle, a former reporter for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 11, 1998.
Citing problems with jury selection (possible racism), ineffective defense representation, DNA which did not match forensic evidence, the St. Louis prosecutor --- please read “prosecutor” --- called for overturning the conviction. That office was joined by relatives of the victim as well as jurors who found Williams guilty. All called for giving Williams a life sentence so further investigations could be conducted.
Again, like in the Owens case, the U.S. Supreme Court, a few hours before the execution, denied Williams’ appeal. This time Sotomayor was joined in her dissent by Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson.
Here is the major point:
What possible negative consequences could result if the courts had issued stays and permitted investigations to continue in these cases?
At the worst, the executions would be delayed by a few months and, at best, innocent lives might have been spared.
(I am not arguing the case for or against capital punishment, although, in the interest of full disclosure, I am opposed to it.)
These cases remind me of the institutional obstinacy of the legal profession in another injustice which I worked on intensely.
I wrote a book about Alton Logan, an African-American Chicago man, who did 26-½ years in prison for a murder he did not commit. After finding Logan guilty, the 12-member jury had to consider the death penalty but its vote had to be unanimous. It voted 10-2 to put Logan to death. Two votes saved him from death row.
The issue: Four attorneys knew from the start that Logan was innocent because their client committed the murder. He confessed to them.
Not wanting to violate the “ethical” code of lawyer-client confidentiality, the attorneys wrote an affidavit that Logan was innocent, locked it in a strong box for more than 26 years, but came forward after their client died in prison where he was serving time for two other murders. After several court hearings, all charges against Logan were dropped and he was released.
In a sense, Logan was “lucky.” Another man, Lee Wayne Hunt, in North Carolina, was imprisoned under similar circumstances -- for a double murder he did not commit. When the real murderer died, his lawyer voluntarily went to court and testified that Hunt was innocent. Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Jack A. Thompson not only would not accept the testimony but reported the attorney to the bar for violating lawyer-client confidentiality.
I called Judge Thompson several times to interview him, but he did not return my phone calls. I understood that perfectly. Under the circumstances, I would not have talked to me either.
I was just starting the process of writing a book on Hunt when his lawyers contacted me with the news that he had died in prison after serving 30 years. Justice!
I find the callous reasoning on this issue unconscionable. We can’t let an innocent person knowingly -- the key word being “knowingly” -- rot in prison when the guilty party has been identified. It is bad enough to make mistakes and cause unbelievable and condemnable injustices -- and these numbers are in the thousands. I was told by experts during my research on the book that between 10,000 and 30,000 innocent people were serving prison sentences. Or consider: At least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
I started a one-person campaign to change the legal ethic on this issue. Over several years, I contacted bar associations, legal committees, judges, legal grievance committees, even the Michigan Supreme Court which, I was told, debated my petition “robustly” but decided to do nothing. The justices are obviously comfortable with letting the innocent languish in prison.
My point is that the code can be changed -- and changed very easily -- without compromising lawyer-client confidentiality. Logan and I make recommendations in the book which would eliminate the risks of letting the guilty go free without punishing the innocent.
Now, I understand the symbolism of having Lady Justice with a blindfold. But perhaps we ought to remove it to let her see what the hell is going on in our so-called justice system.
–––––––
Berl Falbaum is the author of “Justice Failed: How ‘Legal Ethics’ Kept Me in Prison for 26 Years.”
Four days later, the State of Missouri injected five grams of the same drug into the bloodstream of Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams. He was dead in minutes as well.
Owens, 46, and Williams, 55, had three other things in common: Both had been convicted of murder, both might very well have been innocent, and, in both cases, the appellate powers to be, including the U.S. Supreme Court, rejected pleas to stay the executions to permit investigations into new evidence.
Thus, works our “justice” system.
Let’s look at Owens first.
Owens was convicted of killing a Speedway gas station clerk, Irene Graves, a 41-year-old single mother of three, during a string of robberies by two masked men on Halloween night in 1997.
Owens, then only 19, allegedly fired a single shot to Graves’s head, killing her because she couldn’t open the safe. The two robbers escaped with $37.29 from the cash register.
Prosecutors had no forensic evidence implicating Owens and surveillance footage showed two masked men but they were not identifiable. The only evidence against Owens came from Owens’ accomplice and co-defendant, Steven Golden, who testified that Owens fired the fatal shot.
Not revealed to the jury during the trial was that Golden had a secret deal with prosecutors that he would not face the death penalty if he testified against Owens.
But two days before the execution, Golden made public a signed affidavit in which he said that Owens was innocent. He wrote:
“I’m coming forward now because I know Freddie’s execution date is September 20 and I don’t want Freddie to be executed for something he didn’t do. This has weighed heavily on my mind and I want to have a clear conscience.”
Golden added that Owens was not even in the store at the time of the murder/robbery.
Goden said he was high when police questioned him and was pressured to point the finger at Owens.
“I substituted [Owens] for the person who was really with me,” Golden said, concealing the identity of the real murderer because he feared his associates “might kill me.” He still did not want to name the shooter out of fear of retaliation.
The governor, Henry McMaster, prosecutors and appeals courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court (with Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting), rejected last minute appeals to save his life, stating that despite new evidence, they were all convinced other evidence proved Owens guilty. They stated there was “nothing exceptional” -- the legal standard to approve a stay of execution -- about his case.
Now, to Williams.
Williams was convicted of killing Felicia Gayle, a former reporter for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 11, 1998.
Citing problems with jury selection (possible racism), ineffective defense representation, DNA which did not match forensic evidence, the St. Louis prosecutor --- please read “prosecutor” --- called for overturning the conviction. That office was joined by relatives of the victim as well as jurors who found Williams guilty. All called for giving Williams a life sentence so further investigations could be conducted.
Again, like in the Owens case, the U.S. Supreme Court, a few hours before the execution, denied Williams’ appeal. This time Sotomayor was joined in her dissent by Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson.
Here is the major point:
What possible negative consequences could result if the courts had issued stays and permitted investigations to continue in these cases?
At the worst, the executions would be delayed by a few months and, at best, innocent lives might have been spared.
(I am not arguing the case for or against capital punishment, although, in the interest of full disclosure, I am opposed to it.)
These cases remind me of the institutional obstinacy of the legal profession in another injustice which I worked on intensely.
I wrote a book about Alton Logan, an African-American Chicago man, who did 26-½ years in prison for a murder he did not commit. After finding Logan guilty, the 12-member jury had to consider the death penalty but its vote had to be unanimous. It voted 10-2 to put Logan to death. Two votes saved him from death row.
The issue: Four attorneys knew from the start that Logan was innocent because their client committed the murder. He confessed to them.
Not wanting to violate the “ethical” code of lawyer-client confidentiality, the attorneys wrote an affidavit that Logan was innocent, locked it in a strong box for more than 26 years, but came forward after their client died in prison where he was serving time for two other murders. After several court hearings, all charges against Logan were dropped and he was released.
In a sense, Logan was “lucky.” Another man, Lee Wayne Hunt, in North Carolina, was imprisoned under similar circumstances -- for a double murder he did not commit. When the real murderer died, his lawyer voluntarily went to court and testified that Hunt was innocent. Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Jack A. Thompson not only would not accept the testimony but reported the attorney to the bar for violating lawyer-client confidentiality.
I called Judge Thompson several times to interview him, but he did not return my phone calls. I understood that perfectly. Under the circumstances, I would not have talked to me either.
I was just starting the process of writing a book on Hunt when his lawyers contacted me with the news that he had died in prison after serving 30 years. Justice!
I find the callous reasoning on this issue unconscionable. We can’t let an innocent person knowingly -- the key word being “knowingly” -- rot in prison when the guilty party has been identified. It is bad enough to make mistakes and cause unbelievable and condemnable injustices -- and these numbers are in the thousands. I was told by experts during my research on the book that between 10,000 and 30,000 innocent people were serving prison sentences. Or consider: At least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
I started a one-person campaign to change the legal ethic on this issue. Over several years, I contacted bar associations, legal committees, judges, legal grievance committees, even the Michigan Supreme Court which, I was told, debated my petition “robustly” but decided to do nothing. The justices are obviously comfortable with letting the innocent languish in prison.
My point is that the code can be changed -- and changed very easily -- without compromising lawyer-client confidentiality. Logan and I make recommendations in the book which would eliminate the risks of letting the guilty go free without punishing the innocent.
Now, I understand the symbolism of having Lady Justice with a blindfold. But perhaps we ought to remove it to let her see what the hell is going on in our so-called justice system.
–––––––
Berl Falbaum is the author of “Justice Failed: How ‘Legal Ethics’ Kept Me in Prison for 26 Years.”
