Good Samaritan Freed 16 Years After One Juror Saved
Her From A Death Sentence
By Hans Sherrer
Justice Denied magazine, Vol. 1, Issue 8
Ellen Reasonover called the police on January 3, 1983
to report information she thought
might help catch the murderers of a gas station attendant. She soon found
herself charged with the man's murder and she was tried and convicted. A lone
juror refused to vote for her execution so she was sentenced to 50 years in
prison without the possibility of parole. After being imprisoned for 16 years,
a federal judge threw out her conviction on August 3, 1999 as being “fundamentally
unfair” and ordered her released.
Ellen Reasonover has proclaimed her innocence
from the time she was arrested for the brutal January 2, 1983 murder of James
Buckley. He was shot seven times while working as a gas station attendant in Dellwood, Missouri. In December 1983 Ms. Reasonover was
tried and convicted of his murder.
During the penalty phase of her trial a lone
juror refused to vote for Ellen's execution and thus prevented the unanimous
vote necessary for the judge to sentence her to death. Instead, the trial judge
imposed a sentence on Ms. Reasonover of 50 years imprisonment without the
possibility of parole.
That juror's courage to stand alone provided
Ellen Reasonover with the 16 years that were necessary to uncover the truth of
her case and present it to a federal appeals court. Missouri's Chief U. S.
District Judge, Jean C.
Hamilton, held an evidentiary hearing in June
of this year related to Ms. Reasonover's writ of Habeas Corpus. The judge
reviewed the basis of Ellen's claim that she was the innocent victim of a
terrible injustice. On August 3rd, Judge Hamilton issued her ruling. She threw
out Reasonover's conviction and ordered her released from prison.
In her 75-page opinion, Judge Hamilton wrote:
“The prosecution's failure to turn over evidence favorable to the defense
rendered trial fundamentally unfair and deprived of her rights under the
due process clause.”
What was fundamentally unfair about Ellen
Reasonover's prosecution?
• No witness placed
her at the scene of the murder.
• There was no
physical evidence found at the gas station linking her to James Buckley's
murder.
• She was not found
with, or linked to the murder weapon.
• The prosecution
said her motive to murder Mr. Buckley was to rob the gas station. Yet no money
was taken from the cash register and nearly $3,000 was found in the gas
station's unlocked safe.
• The only evidence
presented at trial against Ellen Reasonover was the testimony of two women with
long criminal histories. The two women, Rose Joliff
and Mary Ellen Lyner, had been in a cell with
Reasonover after her arrest. They both testified they heard her admit she had
murdered James Buckley. However, five other women jailed with Reasonover,
including three in the jail cell with her at the same time as Joliff and Lyner, testified they
didn't hear Reasonover say anything incriminating.
• At Ms.
Reasonover's trial, the prosecution denied that it had agreed to exchange
anything of value with Joliff and Lyner
for their testimony. Years after Reasonover's conviction, however, it was
uncovered that the prosecution paid Joliff in cash
for her testimony, and Lyner was rewarded by having
charges of participating in a major credit card scam dropped.
• The prosecution
withheld two exculpatory audio tapes from the defense in violation of pre-trial
discovery requirements. These tapes were secretly recorded by police before her
trial. Ellen's unwavering statements of innocence on the tapes corroborated her
later testimony in court and undermined the testimony of the prosecution's two
"star" witnesses. One tape was of a conversation between Ms.
Reasonover and Joliff four days after the prosecution
alleged that she confessed to Joliff. Ms. Reasonover
repeatedly expressed her innocence on the tape and Joliff
didn't challenge her by making any mention of a previous confession. The other
tape was secretly made in jail when Reasonover and her boyfriend, Stanley
White, were placed in cells next to each other after they were initially
arrested for questioning about the murder. In that conversation, which they did
not know was being taped, they repeatedly expressed bewilderment at their
arrest and stated more than twenty times that they were innocent of having
anything to do with anyone's murder. Mr. White was questioned but not charged.
The existence of the first tape was discovered in 1996, and the existence of
the second was uncovered in June of 1999 when it was found in a box marked “prosecutor's
files.”
How then, in spite of her innocence, did
Ellen Reasonover come within a single vote of being sentenced to death and
perhaps being executed?
It was the result of pure happenstance, and
any one of us could find ourselves in a similar situation. Early on the morning
of January 2, 1983 Ellen ran out of change while at a laundromat.
She went to a nearby gas station to get some change and it happened to be the
one where James Buckley worked and it was on the morning he was murdered. Ms.
Reasonover couldn't find an attendant to help her, so she went to a convenience
store to get the change she needed. When she learned the next day there had
been a murder at the gas station, she called the police to describe two men she
had seen there and the vehicle they were driving.
Ellen Reasonover was rewarded for her desire
to be a good Samaritan by becoming the chief suspect in James Buckley's murder.
As a poor black woman, she was helpless against the prosecutorial onslaught
unleashed against her once she was charged with murdering him.
After she was convicted and imprisoned, Ellen
wrote letters to everyone she thought might be able to help her, including the
Pope and presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. None of her letters produced any
reason for hope until she contacted Centurion Ministries six years ago. Jim
McCloskey and Paul Henderson reviewed her case, and they became convinced of
her innocence. They took up her cause and enlisted the aid of a team of
dedicated pro bono lawyers.
Jim McCloskey described Reasonover's case as “insane,”
and the years of effort by many people to have her freed for a murder she
didn't commit was rewarded when she walked out of Missouri's Chillicothe
Correctional Center on August 3rd.
Ellen Reasonover on the day of her release
Steven Goldman is the now former prosecutor
who orchestrated Ellen Reasonover's conviction. He has expressed disappointment
with Judge Hamilton's ruling. Goldman contends that Ms. Reasonover was accorded
a “fair trial” and she should still be in prison.
It is understandable that after being falsely
imprisoned and kept from raising her daughter from the time she was two years
old, that Ellen Reasonover describes Goldman as “an evil man with no conscience
and no heart.” She is also justified in wondering, “I'm the victim here. Who's
going to prosecute him?” Unfortunately for her, the answer is no one.
Ms. Reasonover will have to be satisfied with
beginning her life anew as a 42 year-old woman and mother who was robbed of
nearly 17 years by Steven Goldman's prosecution of her based on lies and the
withholding of evidence. Mr. Goldman is safely protected from prosecution for
his central role in the miscarriage of justice suffered by Ellen Reasonover. He
is now known as Judge Steven Goldman of the St. Louis County Court.
Sources: “1983 Murder Conviction Overturned
Missouri Woman Freed as Judge Rules Prosecution Was 'Fundamentally Unfair',” Athelia Knight (staff writer), Washington Post, August 4,
1999, p. A2.
“Woman convicted of '83 killing may go free,”
William C. Lhotka & Tim Bryant (staff writers),
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 3, 1999.
“Reasonover returns to tearful reunion,”
William C. Lhotka (staff writer), St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, August 5, 1999.
“Near-Death Experience,” Bob Herbert (op-ed
writer), New York Times, August 22, 1999, Op-Ed page.