[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----MISSOURI

[Rick Halperin]

URGENT ACTION APPEAL


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11 March 2005
UA 58/05    Death penalty / Legal concern

USA (Missouri)    Stanley Hall

Stanley Hall, (m), black, aged 36, is scheduled to be executed in
Missouri on 16 March 2005. He was sentenced to death in March
1996 for the murder of Barbara Wood in January 1994.

Stanley Hall's lawyers are appealing for commutation of his
death sentence on a number of grounds, including on the claim
that he has mental retardation. The execution of people with
mental retardation is unconstitutional in the USA after a 2002
US Supreme Court decision, Atkins v. Virginia. Missouri law
bans such executions, and defines ''mental retardation'' as
''significantly sub-average intellectual functioning'' combined
with ''limitations in two or more adaptive behaviours such as
communication, self-care, home living, social skills, community
use, self direction, health and safety, functional academics,
leisure and work''. The deficits must have been documented
before the age of 18.

At the age of seven, Stanley Hall was assessed as having an IQ
of 57 and diagnosed as ''educable mentally retarded''. In seventh
grade (age 12-13), he was assessed as having an IQ of 71, still
within the range indicating possible mental retardation (IQ of
less than 70-75). At the age of 19, Stanley Hall could still only
read and write at the level of nine- or 10-year-old. At this time
his IQ was assessed at 75. In 1995, his IQ was assessed at 73.
His most recent testing placed his IQ at 65. Stanley Hall's
clemency petition also details his history of deficits in
communication skills, social skills, community use, and work
skills.

The neuropsychologist who assessed Stanley Hall in 1995 wrote:
''It must be realized that Mr Hall maximally is performing within
the border line range of intellectual functioning with equally
significant deficits in conceptual reasoning ability, learning and
memory skills, problem solving skills, and overall general
cognitive organization... [I]t is this examiner's opinion that the
noted cognitive deficit in behavioral, personality and emotional
impairments suggest an individual who responds more to the
exigencies of the situation rather than a planned, premeditated,
deliberate fashion.... Typically, such individuals are increasingly
dependent upon those around them and act in a more subservient
and differential role. Rather than planning and initiating
activities, these individuals follow the lead of the more dominant
individuals in the group.''

Two men, Stanley Hall and Rance Burton, were involved in the
murder of Barbara Wood. At gunpoint, Barbara Wood was
forced into the passenger side of her car, and driven to a bridge
over the Mississippi River. Barbara Wood was forced out of the
car and a struggle ensued during which she was wounded.
According to the trial record, Rance Burton fled the scene and
Stanley Hall pushed Barbara Wood off the bridge and into the
river, where she died. Rance Burton was allegedly the driving
force behind the abduction, and there is evidence that he shot
Barbara Wood prior to her being thrown in the river. Rance
Burton was not charged in the crime for which Stanley Hall is
now facing execution.

Prior to the trial, the St Louis County prosecutor agreed to offer
Stanley Hall a sentence of life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole in return for a guilty plea. The conditions on
this agreement were that Hall would give a full statement, take a
polygraph test on this account of the crime, and testify against
Rance Burton. The results of his initial polygraph test were
inconclusive. He subsequently took another test, which he
passed. However, the prosecutor withdrew from the agreement
and the case went to trial with the state seeking the death
penalty.

Stanley Hall is African American. Barbara Wood was white.
Hall's clemency petition raises evidence of the possible impact
of race on his case. In St Louis County, in the year that he was
prosecuted, four black defendants accused of crimes involving
white victims offered to plead guilty and accept a sentence of life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The prosecutor
rejected all four offers. In three cases involving black victims
and black defendants, such pleas were accepted. Between
January 1991 and March 1996, all St Louis County defendants
sent to death row were convicted of crimes involving white
victims. Yet during this period, more than half of murder victims
in the county were black. Stanley Hall's jury had no African
Americans on it, after the prosecution peremptorily removed the
last two remaining African Americans from the jury pool during
the selection process. Studies in the USA have consistently
shown that murders involving white victims are more likely to
result in a death sentence, and this can be particularly
pronounced when the defendant is black.

At the sentencing phase of the trial, arguing for the execution of
Stanley Hall, the prosecutor related a story to the jurors of how,
when he was a child, he had had his dog put down: ''When I was
a young boy, I had a puppy and his name was Beauregard. He
was about this long. Beauregard came from an animal shelter
and he was a wonderful animal. He would follow you
everywhere. He would stay on a little leash. He would come and
he would wag his tail when you got home, pant and jump on
you, and I found out Beauregard had distemper... And the
veterinarian said... the right thing to do is have him put to sleep.
And as a young child, I was - it was a tremendous decision. But
there was only one right thing to do. You are faced with a
tremendous decision but there is only one right thing to do and
that man (Stanley Hall), this crime deserves the death penalty.''
The Missouri Supreme Court called the prosecutor's argument a
''shameless ploy''. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit called his remarks ''irrelevant, unnecessary, and
improper''. Nevertheless, they have upheld the death sentence.

Stanley Hall is said to be remorseful and to be a productive
prisoner, who as worked on a program with at-risk youth brought
into the prison in attempts to turn them away from crime.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases. In
the USA, the capital justice system is marked by arbitrariness,
discrimination and error. The USA has carried out 954
executions since 1977. Missouri accounts for 61 of these
executions.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive
as quickly as possible, in your own words:
- expressing sympathy for the family and friends of Barbara
Wood, explaining that you are not seeking to condone the
manner of her death or to minimize the suffering caused;
- expressing concern at evidence that Stanley Hall has mental
retardation, which would render his execution unconstitutional
and against Missouri law;
- expressing concern that of the two men involved in this crime,
one was not charged and the other is facing execution, the most
extreme possible disparity, and not reflective of their relative
culpability in the case;
- expressing concern at the apparent role that race has played in
this case;
- expressing concern at the prosecutor's clearly improper
comments at the sentencing;
- noting that the power of executive clemency exists precisely to
reach injustices or errors which the courts have been unwilling or
unable to remedy;
- calling on the governor to commute Stanley Hall's death
sentence.

APPEALS TO:
Governor Matt Blunt
Office of the Governor
Room 216, State Capitol Building
Jefferson City MO 65101
Fax: 1 573 751 1588
Email: mogov at mail.state.mo.us
Salutation: Dear Governor

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.


Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that
promotes and defends human rights.

This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including
contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank
you for your help with this appeal.

Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
PO Box 1270
Nederland CO 80466-1270
Email: uan at aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 303 258 1170
Fax:     303 258 7881

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