[Deathpenalty] Urgent Action 207/15 - USA: Missouri Execution Set as Innocence Claimed

[Rick Halperin]

MISSOURI EXECUTION SET AS INNOCENCE CLAIMED

Kimber Edwards is due to be executed in Missouri on 6 October. He was sentenced 
to death in 2002 for
the murder-for-hire of his former wife. The man who shot the victim and who is 
serving a life
sentence now claims that Kimber Edwards was not involved.

Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case 
information,
addresses and sample messages.

The body of Kimberly Cantrell was found in her apartment in University City, 
Missouri on 23 August
2000, a day after she was last seen alive. She had been shot in the head. She 
had been in a
prolonged dispute with her ex-husband, Kimber Edwards, over child support. 
Police arrested Orthell
Wilson after he was identified as the man who had been seen outside Kimberly 
Cantrell’s apartment on
22 August. He was charged with first-degree murder and also gave a statement 
implicating Kimber
Edwards. The latter denied any involvement in the murder but when the police 
said that they would
bring in his wife and children for interrogation, he said that he had paid a 
man named Michael US
$1,600 to kill Kimberly Cantrell. When the police officers told him that 
Orthell Wilson had said
that “Michael” did not exist, Kimber Edwards told them that Wilson had demanded 
payment for his role
in the killing.

At his trial, Kimber Edwards denied that he had any connection to the murder 
and that he had given
statements to the police so that they would leave his family alone. Orthell 
Wilson did not testify,
but statements he had given to the police were heard by the jury. The jury 
found Kimber Edwards
guilty of first-degree murder and voted for the death penalty after a 
sentencing hearing that lasted
less than a day. Orthell Wilson pleaded guilty in exchange for not facing the 
death penalty. He was
sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

On 8 May 2015, Orthell Wilson signed an affidavit recanting his statements 
implicating Kimber
Edwards, claiming he made them under police pressure and the threat of the 
death penalty, and that
“I alone killed Kimberly Cantrell… Kimber Edwards is completely innocent and 
was not involved in any
way in the murder”. He stated that in 2000 he was in a “secret romantic 
relationship” with Kimberly
Cantrell and that he had shot her in the context of an argument over his “drug 
addiction and
constant need for money”. Three of his neighbors from that time have signed 
affidavits stating that
they knew of the relationship between Orthell Wilson and Kimberly Cantrell.

In 2004, a psychiatrist concluded that Kimber Edwards has Asperger’s Disorder 
and that this
“adversely affected the reliability of his statement to detectives during 
interrogation as well as
his ability to knowingly waive his rights”. The psychiatrist also concluded 
that Kimber Edwards’
“odd” reaction to the death of his former wife, which the jury heard described 
as “nonchalant”,
“relaxed” and “carefree”, could be explained by the defendant’s Asperger’s 
Disorder. The jury heard
no such explanation for this “damaging characterization” of his demeanor.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

At jury selection for a US capital trial, the defense and prosecution will 
question prospective
jurors and can exclude certain people, either for a stated reason (for cause) 
or without giving a
reason (a peremptory challenge). Those citizens who would be “irrevocably 
committed” to vote against
the death penalty can be excluded for cause by the prosecution, under a 1968 US 
Supreme Court
ruling. In 1985, the Court relaxed the standard, thereby expanding the class of 
potential jurors who
could be dismissed for cause during jury selection.  Under this standard, a 
juror can be dismissed
for cause if his or her feelings about the death penalty would “prevent or 
substantially impair the
performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and 
his oath”. In 1986, the
Supreme Court acknowledged research showing that the “death qualification” of 
capital jurors
“produces juries somewhat more ‘conviction-prone’ than ‘non-death-qualified’ 
juries”. In 2008, the
then most senior judge on the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens, wrote that “the 
process of obtaining
a ‘death qualified jury’ is really a procedure that has the purpose and effect 
of obtaining a jury
that is biased in favor of conviction”.

Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format.

Name: Kimber Edwards (m)
Issues: Imminent execution, Unfair trial, Legal concern
UA: 207/15
Issue Date: 24 September 2015
Country: USA

Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact!

EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with "UA 207/15" in the subject 
line, and include in the
body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent,

OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action.

Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office 
if taking action after
the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please 
forward it to us at
uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Please write immediately in English or your own language:
  *  Calling for Kimber Edwards’ execution to be stopped and for his death 
sentence to be commuted;
  *  Noting that the man who actually shot Kimberly Cantrell has recanted his 
post-arrest statements
     implicating Kimber Edwards and maintains that the condemned man had nothing 
to do with the
     murder;
  *  Pointing out the irrevocability of execution and the errors that have been 
revealed in US
     capital cases;
  *  Explaining that you are not seeking to downplay the seriousness of the 
crime or the suffering
     caused.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 6 OCTOBER 2015 TO:

Office of Governor Jay Nixon
P.O. Box 720, Jefferson City, MO 65102, USA Fax: 1 573 751 1495
Email: via website http://governor.mo.gov/contact/ Salutation: Dear Governor


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