Executed October 3, 2001

Governor Bob Holden
Missouri Capital Building Rm.216
P.O. Box 720
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0720

Re: Michael Roberts

Dear Governor Holden:

On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, we urge you to grant clemency to Michael Roberts. While Mr. Roberts has exhausted all other legal options, lingering questions about the fairness of Mr. Roberts's trial and appeals and the heartrending circumstances of his upbringing merit this extraordinary relief.

Mr. Roberts's personal history - both victim and witness to extreme sexual abuse while suffering from severe mental and emotional problems - is nothing less than tragic. As early as seven years old, Mr. Roberts was diagnosed with a mental illness manifested in aggressive and totally uncontrollable impulses. A later psychiatric hospital stay resulted in a recommendation of psychotropic medications to help him control his behavior.

Mr. Roberts, however, never received this medication or other needed treatment until after the offense for which he was sentenced to death-a crime that could only have been committed by someone overwhelmed by unmanageable impulses. Mr. Roberts grew up in such a radically dysfunctional home that his father prevented mental-health professionals from providing any assistance to him.

The sexual and physical abuse to which Gene Roberts subjected Mr. Roberts and his siblings is horrific. He forced Mr. Roberts to perform fellatio on him and required Mr. Roberts to stand guard while he was performing incest and sodomy on Ella, Mr. Roberts's older half-sister. Later, he did the same to his granddaughter - the offspring of his incestuous abuse of his daughter.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Roberts later had sexual contact with his younger brother, his older half-sister, and his five-year old sister. When his father caught Mr. Roberts having sexual contact with his younger sister, he severely beat the two children.

In attempting to bring such information to light at his trial and to demonstrate that his mental illness prevented him from forming the requisite intent for first-degree murder, Mr. Roberts was, in essence, penalized. Contrary to Missouri law requiring the court to give a specific jury instruction regarding mental health defenses, the trial judge refused to give such an instruction. The result of this failure was that the jury mistakenly was allowed to consider this information as evidence of Mr. Roberts's guilt and as a basis for rendering a death sentence. Despite the Missouri Supreme Court's conclusion that the trial judge erred in not giving the requested jury instruction, the Court refused to grant Mr. Roberts a new trial.

Additional questions linger concerning the trial court's exclusion of expert testimony as to Mr. Roberts's somatic brain condition that rendered him unusually susceptible to the effects of cocaine, taken immediately prior to the crime, and accordingly, incapable of committing first-degree murder. Further serious questions remain regarding the effectiveness of Mr. Roberts's trial counsel.

While the appeals process is designed to protect against such errors, a mere glance at the appellate history of Mr. Roberts's case reveals that it has failed to do so - from the Missouri Supreme Court's refusal to grant a new trial, despite its finding of error, to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals' mandate limiting Mr. Roberts's counsel to a mere twenty pages in his appeal of one hundred and nine page district court opinion. While any failure of the appeals process is disturbing, there exists no margin for error when the punishment is death.

The ACLU opposes capital punishment in all cases as a barbarous anachronism and in violation of the U.S. Constitution. However, the State of Missouri's death penalty statistics are particularly startling. The State of Missouri has executed fifty-one people since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 and five people alone since the beginning of this year. Further, during this period, clemency has been granted to only two death row inmates. Despite this unsettling record, the State of Missouri now has the opportunity, in mercy and as an act of grace, to demonstrate that before enforcing this ultimate punishment, it has done everything in its power to adequately safeguard the rights of those condemned to death.

Sincerely,

Diann Rust-Tierney
ACLU Capital Punishment Project

Matt LeMieux
ACLU of Eastern Missouri

Amy L. Friedman
Pro Bono Counsel
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP