Missouri

February 20, 2005

On March 16, 2005 the State of Missouri is scheduled to execute Stanley L. Hall, a 37-year-old black male, for the murder, kidnapping, and robbery of Barbara Jo Wood in St. Louis.  This will be the first execution in the State of Missouri in almost a year and a half.  Missouri courts have been hesitant to issue death warrants, resulting in an unofficial moratorium on its death penalty.  They have overturned approximately half of the considered death sentences in the last two years, according to the Associated Press.

Despite this, an execution date has been issued for Stanley Hall who, along with Rance Burton (who was not given the death penalty even though he admittedly shot the victim), was responsible for the death of Barbara Jo Wood.  Hall was tried by an all-white jury that excluded any prospective jurors who oppose the death penalty.

There are circumstances that have prompted Hall to file motions regarding his ineffective defense counsel.  So far all have been denied.  Examples of these issues are:

·        During Hall’s trial, prosecution showed numerous gruesome photographs of the body believed to be the victim of this crime.  Such photos are admissible unless the probative value is outweighed by the inflammatory nature of the photographs or if they are used solely for arousal of the jury.  Since identification of the body of the victim was not an issue at trial, these photographs were arguably used solely for shock value and had no probative value.

Unfortunately, this objection was not raised by defense during trial.

·        Remarks made by prosecution were deemed to be “personalization” (i.e., instilling fear in the jurors by personalizing the evidence).  Prosecutors called on the jurors to protect their mothers, daughters, and sisters and make sure Stanley Hall was brought down.  In a later stage of appeal defense argued that prosecutors “crossed the line” by “calling on the jurors’ most primitive fears.”

Again, this point was not raised by defense counsel at trial or upon direct appeal.

·        The Defendant entered into a plea bargain with the state for a sentence of life without parole.  The Courts aren’t forced to accept the terms of a plea bargain negotiated by the State, but “if the state receives a confession through promises of leniency, however, and then the State reneges, that confession cannot be used at trial.” Prosecutors managed its way around this rule by having the defendant give his confession on two occasions and linked only one to the plea bargain.  They then only submitted the other confession at trial as evidence.

Defense counsel neglected to raise any issue of the confession and polygraph test that were given as a condition of the plea bargain until the mitigating stage of the sentencing phase.  Since this evidence was not relevant to the defendant’s character or previous history, it was not allowed at this point in the trial and consequentially the jury was never made aware of the issue.

·        Finally, in the sentencing phase the prosecutor related a story of his childhood dog that had problems with “distemper” and the vet told him he’d have to put the dog down because that was the only solution.  As a little boy he was very sad that there was no other solution, but he explained that people had to do what was best for society and the people around them.  The prosecutor then compared this dog to the Defendant.  The courts frowned on this tactic used by prosecution but overruled the defense’s objection.

The governor of Missouri receives a non-binding recommendation from the Board of Probation and Parole for clemency/commutations.