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Copyright © 1991 The New York Times NEW YORK, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1991 50 cents beyond 75 miles from New Yo 
  

Inmate Whose 
  

By PETER APPLEBOME 
Special to The New York Times 

ATLANTA, Sept. 23 — After 13 years 
of litigation that helped define the jaw 
on capital punishment, a Georgia man 
may be put to death Tuesday despite 
statements by two jurors that they no 
longer think he should be executed. 

The condemned man, Warren 
McCleskey, sentenced to death for the 
1978 Killing of an Atlanta policeman, 
was the subject of two Supreme Court 
rulings in recent years that have dra- 
matically narrowed the options for ap- 
peai.open to death row inmates and 
their lawyers. 

Now; in a paradoxical finale to his 
case, Mr. McCleskey’s hope for a com- 
mutation from the Georgia Board of 
Pardons and Paroles depends on how 
the board responds to information the 
Supreme Court refused to consider in a 
sweeping 1990 ruling that dramatically 
limited the rights of death row inmates 
to file appeals. 

. The board today heard from two 
urors who said that had they been told 
that one of Mr. McCleskey's two accus- 
ers was a police informer who was 
offered the chance of a lighter sentence 
in exchange for incriminating testimo- 
ny, they would not have voted for the 
death penalty. The Supreme Court 
ruled in 1990 that information, discov- 
ered by Mr. McCleskey's lawyers long 
after his original trial, was invalid be- 
cause it should have been introduced 
earlier in his appeals. 

Conflicting Calls for Justice 

Mr. McCleskey, 46 years old, admits 
he is one of four men who committed 
the furniture store robbery on May 13, 
1978, in which Officer Frank Schiatt 
was shot and Killed. But he has denied 
shooting Officer Schlatt. While his 
three co-defendants were given long 
prison terms, Mr. McCleskey, as the 
convicted Killer, was given a death 
sentence in the case. 
.- The board is expected to rule Tues- 
day “afternoon, before the scheduled 
execution in the electric chair at 7 P.M. 

t 

  In the meantime, the fate of Mr. | 
McCleskey, whose appeals have been ' 
compared In influence in death penalty 
cases with Roe v. Wade in abortion law, 
still manages to elicit the anguished 
passions and ambiguities of the overall 
death penalty debate, 

In two separate hearings today, the 
board heard first from family mem- 
bers and friends of the officer urging 
an execution and then from those op- 
posing ft. 
“All 1 want is justice,” said Jodie 

Schlatt Swanner, now 24, the only child 
of Officer Schiatt. ‘‘He believed in the 
justice system, and it’s about time the 
justice system takes up for my father. I 
want the sentence carried out.” | 

CNR TE EK 

A ppeuls Shoo 
    

second appeal, the Court sharply cur- 

  

k System Faces Execution 
Hastening Pace of Executions 

In 1990, in a 6-to-3 ruling on his 

Marlene Karas/Atlanta Journal Constitution 

tailed the ability of death row inmates 
‘and other state prisoners to file multi- 

sentence had been tainted by the prose- 

: ers sentence reflected a taint- 

  Warren McCleskey, who faces execution today for the 1978 killing of an 
Atlanta police officer, talking with his lawyer, Robert Stroup, in prison 
last Friday. Mr. McCleskey was the subject of two Supreme Court 
rulings that have narrowed the options open to death row inmates. 
  

Shadowed by Doubt 

worker who was on the jury that con. | victed Mr. McCleskey, is one who does | 

  

Robert Burnette, a 49-year-old postal | 

Jurors’ doubts 
clash with the 

impatience of a 
victim's friends. | 

  
  

not want the sentence carried out. He 
says that had he known more about |! 
Offie Evans, a jail inmate who was one 
of two witnesses who said Mr. McCles- 
key was the killer, he would not have 
found him credible. Jurors were told 
only that he was a fellow prisoner. The 
other testimony came from one of the 
other robbers, who could also have 
been the triggerman.   

‘1 believe if you take a life, death is 
the right punishment,” Mr. Burnette 
said in an interview after the hearing 
today. ‘But when you take that per- 
son's life you have to be sure beyond a 
shadow of a doubt that person commit- 
ted the crime, and I don't feel that way 
about this case. If we knew more about 
Offie Evans, his credibility would have 
been shot to hell.” 

Mr. McCleskey’s name is on two of 
the most important Supreme Court rul- 
ings on the death penalty issued over 

. the past decade. In both cases, an in- 
creasingly conservative Court nar- 
rowed the options open to death penalty 
appellants. 
. In 1987, in a 5-to-4 ruling, the Court 
ruled that the death penalty was consti- 
tutional despite statistics showing that 
killers of white people are far more 
ikely to be executed than Killers of 
black peopie. Mr. McCleskey is black; 
Jfficer Schlatt was white. The ruling, 
described at the time as the most im- 
portant death case in 11 years, elimi- 

- nated the last sweeping legal challenge 
to the death penalty.   

ple appeals. A Federal judge had ruled 
in Mr. McCleskey's favor, saying the 

cution's failure to reveal that Mr. Ev- 
ans was a police informer with some- 
thing to gain by his testimony and not 
just a disinterested inmate. 

But the United States Court of Ap- 
peals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, 
overturned that finding. The Supreme 
Gout, ruling that the claim should 
hdve’been raised earlier, upheld the 
agpellafe ruling in a finding that is 

jsto dramatically speed up the 
“of executions. oo 

.41aWyers today argued that Mr. 

ny) 

*dnJegal process and asked that his 
exedution be stayed and his sentence 
cpmmauted to life. Central to their pre- 
septation were the statements from 
two-dfurors, Mr. Burnette and Jill 
“Darmer, that the information withheld 
from: them compromised the process. 
‘Mg Darmer called the proceedings 

  
“an outrage.” 
rw A one of Mr. McCles- 

key’s lawyers, said, ‘Jurors are sup- 
posed to be given the truth, the whole | 
truth, and they just didn’t get it. 

But family members and friends of | 

| the slain officer said that after 13 
years, the process had gone on long 
‘enough. They said they had no doubt 
Mr. McCleskey was the Killer. Mr. 
McCleskey, a former factory -worker, . 
was convicted of a string of armed 

robberies in 1970 and was given three | 
life terms but was paroled after seven 
years. 

The Georgia Attorney General, Mi- 
chael Bowers, said in a telephone inter- 
view that it is a basic tenet of law that | 
jurors cannot impeach their own ver- | 
dicts. The jurors, he added, were obvi- | 
ously influenced by the defense team’s | 
efforts, and he said the parole board : 
should give little weight to their state- | 
ments. : 

“The problem here is we wait sO | 
long, we forget the tragedy, the horror, | 
and the barbarity of the crime in the | 
first place,” Mr. Bowers said. “We had | 
a young policeman in the flower of his i 
life gunned down with no compunction | 
whatsoever, and now we hail this guy | 
as the poster child for Amnesty Inter- 
national. It’s ridiculous.” 

| 

 



  

Defense lawyers provided records | from the state prison in Jackson and statements from clergymen and rela- tives indicating that Mr. McCleskey had been an exemplary inmate and had been active in the prison’s religious | activities. Prison officials have de- | scribed him as a peacemaker, and a | sister, Emma Jo Ballard, said she be. | lieved he would become a minister if released. 

Faith From a Minister 
The Rev. George Worth, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, has come to know Mr. McCleskey through his prison work. *] believe what he says,” he told the parole board. “I believe Warren McCleskey is a man of integrity and faith, that he’s a gentle man who is not violent and did not commit this crime.” 

  

     

Friends and family members of Offi- | : cer Schlatt were not impressed. 
“I believe he's become a Christian, |and I'm glad that happened,” said Mrs. | : Swanner of Mr. McCleskey. “But |.: Christians have to pay for their sins 

also.” EE 

 



  

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1991 
  

Georgia Inmate Is Executed 

After ‘Chaotic’ Legal Move 
  

By PETER APPLEBOME 
Special to The New York Times 

ATLANTA, Sept. 25 Warren 
McCleskey, whose two unsuccessful 
appeals to the United States Supreme 
~Court helped define death penalty law, 
was executed this morning after an all- 
night spasm of legal proceedings that 
played out like a caricature of the 
issues his case came to symbolize. 

Mr. McCleskey, a black, 44-year old 
factory worker who was convicted of 
killing a white police officer here dur- 
ing an attempted robbery in 1978, was 
electrocuted at the state prison in Jack- 
son, Ga., after a series of stays issued 
by a Federal judge was lifted. 

But when he died, after declining a 
last meal and after being strapped into 
the chair at one point and then un- 
strapped three minutes later, his exe- 
cution added a final chapter to his 
odyssey through the courts. 

In a final legal scramble, the Su- 
preme Court twice refused a stay — 
once at about 10 P.M. on Tuesday, after 
a state court denied last-minute ap- 
peals, and then just before 3 A.M. to- 

  

An unsettling 
ending to an 

odyssey through 
the courts. 
  

day, after a similar appeal was reject- 
ed by lower Federal courts. The 
Court’s 6-to-3 decisions came after the 
Justices were polled by telephone. 

A ‘Chaotic’ Appeals Process 

Five minutes later, after Mr. 
McCleskey had been strapped into the 
electric chair, electrodes attached to 
his skull and a final prayer read, prison 
officials were told the Supreme Court 
had rejected a fina] stay. A minute 
later the execution began, and he was 
pronounced dead at 3:13. 

A spokesman for the Georgia De- 
partment of Pardons and Paroles de- 
scribed the process, which began with 
the parole board's denial of a clemency 
pefition on Tuesday, as ‘“‘chaotic.” 

+ Justice Thurgood Marshall of the. 
Supreme Court, who was one of three 
dissenters in the Court’s decision not to 
halt the execution, was considerably 
more stinging in his dissent. 

Justice Marshall, who will retire 
when his successor is confirmed by the 
Senate, wrote: ‘‘In refusing to grant a 

stay to review ' fully McCleskey’s 
claims, the Court values expediency 
over human life. Repeatedly denying 
Warren McCleskey his constitutional 
rights is unacceptable. Executing him   

is inexcusable.” 
But state officials said Mr. McCles- 

key’s final appeals were typical of the 
seemingly endless litigation a land- 
mark Supreme Court ruling on his sec- 
ond appeal was intended to stop. 

Clemency Petition Rejected 

On Tuesday morning the five-mem- 
ber Georgia Board of Pardons and 
Paroles turned down Mr. McCleskey’s 
clemency petition, apparently closing 
off the last obstacle to an execution. In 
Georgia, only the board has the author- 
ity to commute a death sentence. The 
board acted despite statements from 
two jurors that information improperly 
withheld at the trial tainted their sen- 
tence, and that they no longer support- 
ed an execution. 

Mr. McCleskey’s execution was ini- 
tially scheduled for 7 P.M. Tuesday, but 
shortly before that Federal District 
Judge J. Owen Forrester agreed to 
stay the execution, first until 7:30, then 
until 10 and then until midnight, to hear 
a last-minute appeal filed in three dif- 
ferent courts. 

Judge Forrester denied the appeal 
after a hearing ended around 11:20 
P.M, but he stayed the execution until 
2 o'clock this morning to allow lawyers 
to appeal it. At 2:17 A.M. Mr. McCles- 
key was into the electric chair, only to 
be taken away three minutes later 
when officials learned the High Court 
was still pondering a stay. 

He was placed back in the chair at 
2:53 A.M. under the assumption that no 
news from the Court meant the execu- 
tion was still on. Word that the Court 
had denied a stay came just as the 
execution was ready to begin at 3:04. 

Two Landmark Rulings 

Mr. McCleskey, who filed repeated | 
appeals over the 13 years between his 
conviction and his death and has had a 
long succession of lawyers, produced 
two landmark rulings in death penalty 
law. 

In 1987, in the last major challenge to 
the constitutionality of the death pen- 
alty, the Supreme Court voted, 5 to 4, 
that the death penalty was legal de- 
spite statistics showing that those who 
kill white people are far more frequent- 
ly sentenced to die than are those who 
kill blacks. ° 

Last April the Court voted, 6 to 3, that 
Mr. McCleskey’s claim that his sen- 
tence was tainted by information with- 
held from the jury should be rejected 
because he failed to make the claim on 
his first habeas corpus petition. In do-- 
ing so, the Court spelled out strict new 
guidelines that sharply curtailed the 
ability of death row inmates and other 
state prisoners to pursue multiple Fed- 
eral court appeals. 

Mr. McCleskey was the 155th person 
to be executed since the Supreme Court 

- Warren McCleskey during an interview 
4 

    

  

Marlene Karas/The Atlanta Journal Constitution 

last week at prison in Georgia. 
  ad

 

cleared the way in 1976 for states to 
resume capital punishment. 

Mr. McCleskey admitted to being 
one of four men involved in a robbery 
in which Officer Frank Schlatt was 
killed, but he denied being the one who 
shot him. None of the other men re- 
ceived the death sentence. 

Before the execution he apologized to 
Officer Schlatt’s family for taking part 
in the attempted robberry, asked his 
own family not to be bitter about his 
death, professed his religious beliefs 
and decried the use of the death pen- 
alty. He neither confessed to being the 
gunman nor did he say he was innocent 
of the killing. 

“1 pray that one day this country, 
supposedly a civilized society, will 
abolish barbaric acts such as the death 
penalty,” he said. 

‘13 Years too Say Goodbye’ 

Officer Schlatt’s daughter said the 
execution renewed her faith in the jus: 
tice system. 

“I feel for his family, but he’s had 13 
years to say goodbye to his family and 
to make peace with God,” said Jodie 
Schlatt Swanner. “I never got to say 
goodbye to my father. This has nothing 
to do with vengence. It has to do with 
justice.” 

But Mr. McCleskey’s supporters,   who held demonstrations here and in 
  

  

  

Washington, said Mr. McCleskey’s 
case from beginning to end was a po- 
tent argument against the death pen- 
alty as it is used in the United. States. 

“Ten years ago the idea that we 
would execute someone in violation of 
the Constitution was so abhorrent no 
one could imagine it happening,” said 
Stephen Bright, director of the South- 
ern Center for Human Rights in Atlan- 
ta, which does legal work for the poor. 
“Now, as a result of the Rehnquist 
Court, what we're seeing and what 
we're going to see in case after case is 
people going to the execution chamber 
in cases in which the jury did not know 
fundamental things about the case.” 

The case against Mr. McCleskey was || 
largely circumstantial. Testimony 
came from one of the other robbers, 
who named Mr. McCleskey as the gun- 
man, and from another prisoner, Offie | 
Evans who told jurors Mr. McCleskey 
had confessed to him in jail. 

Jurors were not told that Mr. Evans 
was a police informer who was led to|. 
believe that his sentence would bel 
shortened if he produced incriminating 
evidence against Mr. McCleskey. His 
lawyers learned of Mr. Evans’s ties to 
the police after the trial through docu- 
ments obtained under the Freedom of 
Information Act.   
  

  

 



  

Warren McCleskey Case -- May, 1931 

A. General Background 

Warren McCleskey is a 44-year-old black man who vas sentenced to death 

for his part in a May 13, 1978, armed robbery of the Dixie Furniture Store in 

Atlanta, Ceorgia. During the robbery, a vhite Atlanta officer, Frank Schlatt, 

entered the furniture store and vas killed by a pistol shot fired by one of 

the four robbers. 

From the moment of his arrest, McCleskey admitted taking part in the 

robbery, but he has consistently denied that he vas the triggerman who shot 

Officer Schlatt. There vere no eyewitnesses to the shooting, and the murder 
veapon itself vas never found. The State's case against HcCleskey turned 
largely on the testimony of two persons: (i) Ben Wright, a co-defendant and 

the leader of the four robbers, who gratuitously told the jury that McCleskey 

(and not himself) had done the shooting; and (ii) Qffie Evens, a jailhouse 

informant, who said McCleskey admitted the shooting vhile in the Fulton County 

Jail avaiting trial. Co-defendant Wright was the other most likely shooting 

suspect, but he quickly agreed to testify against McCleskey in exchange for a 

life sentence. McCleskey alone received a sentence of death. 

  

In 1984, the United States District Court overturned McCleskey's 

conviction and death sentence. The District Court found that informant Offie 

Evans had been secretly promised favorable judicial treatment by the State in 
exchange for his adverse testimony against Warren McCleskey. This secret 
State conduct violated constitutional rights that have long been protected by 

the Fourteenth Amendment. Giglio v. United States, 405 U.8. 150 (1972). On 
appeal, hovever, the federal court of appeals overturned McCleskey's grant of 
relief, £inding that the State's promise to Evans had been negligible. 

  

Tvo of McCleskey's trial jurors have given sworn affidavits stating that 
if they had known about the evidence of misconduct later uncovered i 
they would never have voted to impose a death sentence on McCleskey in 1378. 

The State's case against McCleskey as the triggerman, they explained, was very 

yeak, and it was only their misplaced confidence in informant Offie Evans that 

allowed them to vote for death. 

  

  

  

  

  

  

In 1986-1987, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United 
States also rejected massive evidence that Warren McCleskey's death sentence, 

like many in the State of Georgia, had been imposed in a racially 

discriminatory pattern: black defendants like McCleskey who killed vhites 

vere receiving death sentences over four times as often ag those who killed 
black victims, even when the circumstances of the crime were nearly identical. 
Indeed, in Fulton County vhere McCleskey was tried, between 1973 and 1580 at 
least 17 persons had been arrested for murder against police officials -- yet 
Warren McCleskey was the only one of these seventeen who received a death 
sentence. See HcCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 278 (13887). 

  

  

After the Supreme Court denied relief to McCleskey in 1987, and shortly 

before his execution, McCleskey's lawyers stumbled across nev evidence of 
another flagrant constitutional violation: that Atlanta police had secretly 
planted informant Evans near McCleskey's cell, had instiucted Evans to obtain 

  

Ao BG TT 919 262 1277 FAGE . QZ 

 



  

a confession from McCleskey, and had covered up their misconduct when later 
asked. (Conservative Justices Warren Burger and William Rehnquist have both 
vritten opinions in the past clearly condemning such secret misconduct as a 
violation of the Sixth Amendment. See United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264 
(1980)). For a second time, the United States District Court overturned 
McCleskey's conviction and death sentence. Yet for a second time, the court 
of appeals and the Supreme Court reversed. These appellate courts did not 
overturn the finding that Atlanta officers had engaged in unconstitutional 
behavior; instead, they held that McCleskey's lawyers should have uncovered 
evidence of the police misconduct sooner. See McCleskey v. Zant, U.S. __, 59 
U.S,L.¥. 4288 (U.3., April 16, 1991). 

What the Supreme Court did in McCleskey's second appeal is a travesty. 
They have held that no matter how terrible the constitutional violation, no 
matter how calculated and ruthless the police misconduct, that misconduct will 
be overlooked, and a defendant put to death, absent proof of exceptional 
circunstances almost impossible to meet. It is not enough to prove that the 
police and other members of the prosecution team committed perjury, lied, and 
othervise acted to cover up evidence of their ovn actions. 

B. The Current Situation 
  

The Supreme Court is presently considering McCleskey's final petition 
for rehearing, which argues that it was impossible to uncover evidence which 
the police themselves had carefully hidden. That petition will likely be 
decided by June 10th. 

If the Supreme Court decides against Warren McCleskey, he has one legal 
avenue open: he can go back to the State courts, specifically, to the 
Superior Court of Butts County, Georgia, and urge that the Superior Court 
entertain to hear his evidence of police misconduct. There are two reasons to 
think that the Superior Court might do so: 

{i} the evidence of police misconduct had not surfaced 
vhen McCleskey came to that court in 1387; 

(ii) McCleskey didn't know about the misconduct in 1987 
because State officials had hidden it. 

An important Georgia Supreme Court case, decided in 1983, Smith v. Zant, 
250 Ga. 645, __ , 301 S.E.2d8 32, 37 (1983), provides that if a defendant can 
present new evidence previously hidden by the State, the Superior Court should 
consider his claim on its merits. The Georgia case, in other words, appears 
to reject the Supreme Court's nev standard and say that, in Georgia at least, 
proof of prosecution misconduct is enough. That's just what McCleskey can 
show here. 

AT A MINIMUM, NO DEATH SENTENCE SHOULD BE SET IN THIS CASE UNTIL AFTER 
THE SUPERIOR COURT, AND THE SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA, HAVE FULLY HEARD AND 
DECIDED HIS CLAIM. 

  

OY 1822 319 962 1277 PAGE.@OZ 

 



    

MAY-28-1931 16:36 FROM UNC LAW SCHOOL ROOM 242 TO 82122192852 P.24 

¢. McCleskey's Case for Clemency 

There are at least three strong grounds for clemency in this case. The 

First is the serious, persistent doubt about whether McCleskey is actually the 

triggerman in this case. If he is not, it would be morally vrong for him to 

he executed vhile each of his three co-defendants receive lesser sentences. 

The grave guestions about Offle Evans's behavior that have been raised in this 

case -~ behavior that violated at least tvo separate violations of the federal 

constitution -- are alone enough establish a reasonable doubt about 

McCleskey's guilt. 

The second is the Supreme Court's dismissal of a host of constitutional 

objections -- to Offie Evans's secret offer of leniency, to the massive 

evidence of racial discrimination, to the proof of police misconduct -- all on 

vhat amount to legal technicalities. No one vhose trial vas so gravely flawed 

should be put to death. 

Finally, Warren McCleskey has done much to rehabilitate himself while in 

prison. He has complied with prison rules, made a useful contribution to 

prison life, started and led Bible study and religious class among Death Row 

inmates, and proven a reliable guide and counsellor to younger, more unstable 

inmates who have come to Death Row. Warren McCleskey is well-respected by 

prison guards, and he has a host of outside visitors who vill praise his 

maturity, his insight, and his acts of consideration and xindness. 

 



  

TALKING POINTS WITH ANDREW YOUNG 
Fazxen McCleskey Case -- Hay, 1991 

General Background -- 

Warren McCleskey vas sentenced to death for his part in a May 13, 1978 

armed robbery of the Dixie Furniture Store in Atlanta, Geozgia, during vhich a 

vhite Atlanta officer vas killed. There were three co-defendants, none of 

vhom received the death penalty. 

McCleskey has admitted taking part in the robbery, but he has 

consistently denied that he vas the triggezman vho shot Officer Schlatt. 

There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, and the murder veapon itself vas 

never found. The State's case against McCleskey turned on the testimony of 

tvo persons: (i) Ben Wright, a co-defendant and the leader of the four 

robbers, who gratuitously told the jury that McCleskey had done the shooting; 

and (ii) Offie Evans, a jailhouse informant, who sald McCleskey admitted the 

shooting vhile in the Fulton County Jail avaiting trial. 

In 1984, the District Court (Judge J. Owen Forrester) granted relief to 

McCleskey on a federal habeas petition, finding that the informant Evans had 

been secretly promised favorable treatment in exchange for his testimony (in 

violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.) The Court of Appeals reversed that 

grant of relief, finding that the promise, if any, had been negligible. Both 

the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States rejected 

massive evidence that the death penalty in the State of Georgia and in Fulton 

County had been imposed in a racially discriminatory manner. 

In 1987, after the Supreme Court denied relief, McCleskey uncovered 

evidence that Atlanta police had secretly planted informant Evans near 

McCleskey's cell and had instructed Evans to obtain a confession from 

McCleskey {in clear violation of the Sixth Amendment). Judge Oven Forrester 

agreed and once again granted relief. The Court of Appeals and the Supreme 

Court reversed, holding that McCleskey's lawyers should have uncovered the 

evidence of police misconduct sooner. 

The Supreme Court is currently considering McCleskey's last-ditch 

petition for rehearing of that decision. It will likely act on June 10th. 

Current Plans on McCleskey's Behalf 

We are pursuing a clemency strategy that has several facets, on each of 

vhich Andrev Young's help vould be velcome: 

(1)  Elrst, ve are trying to reach Fulton County District 

  

date, and if he resists urging from the Attorney 

General's office to set a date, Warren McCleskey will 

never be executed. 

MEY. EB 281 12142 S318 352 ‘1277. PAGE, BOE 

 



12:55 FROM UNC LAW SCHOOL ROOM 242 TO 82122192852 P.83-804 

  

¥hy vould he do so? 

(a) Slaton has never vigorously supported 
capital sentences in Fulton County and has 
stopped seeking them altogether in recent 
years. 

(b} Varren McCleskey is the only Fulton County 
defendant on death rov for the murder of a 
police officer, even though some 23 
defendants have been charged vith the 
murder of a police officer in Fulton 

County since 1973. 

(c) The prosecutor in McCleskey's case -- 

Russell Parker {(vho is no longer with the 
Fulton County DA's office) vas ready to 
permit McCleskey to plead guilty and avoid 
a death sentence in 1978. McCleskey 

refused to plead. 

(d) Strong evidence of racial discrimination 

and of police misconduct taints thls case. 

(e} Many black political leaders in Fulton 
County vill oppose McCleskey's execution. 

  (2) Second, we would like to persuade the Atlanta Olympic 

Organizing Committee that Warren McCleskey's execution 
would be harmful to Atlanta's image for the 1996 

Olympics and should be opposed, for the following 

reasons: 

  

  

(a) Due to the racial discrimination claims 
presented in McCleskey's case -=- claius 
that vere reported vorldvide in 1987 -- 
Warren McCleskey's name is known 

throughout Europe and the Third World. 
His execution would bring many protests 
and incite anger in many quarters. 

(E.g,, ve have already been contacted for 
information by several international 
groups; ve have voxd that the European 
Parliament would see a resolution 
deploring the execution and urging the 

State of Georgia not to carry it out; we 

have heard that some international folks 
night consider demonstrations in Atianta 

 



  

during the 1996 Olympics if this death 
sentence is carried out.) 

(b} Unlike most other Georgia inmates, 
MoCleskey is an Atlanta case involving 
Atlanta police and prosecutors in charges 
of misconduct. 

We make the assumption that the death penalty in 
Georgia is sufficiently political that if the most 

poverful sponsors of the Olympics truly decided that 
McCleskey's execution would be harmful, they could 
exercise the influence to prevent it. 

Andrev Young is well-connected with those organizers, 
many of whom are tied to King and Spalding, AND he 
brings great credibility to any discussion of world 
opinion on human rights/civil rights issues. If 
Andrev Young told the organizers that European, 
African and Asian countries vould strongly disapprove 
of McCleskey's execution, ve think they would believe 
him. 

In sum, we suspect that Young could make a strong case 
to these folks for using their influence to avoid an 
execution. 

(3) Third, if an execution date is set, we want the 
Atlanta Police Department and the Fulton County 
District Attorney to take po position on the execution 
before the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Young might 
well be helpful in persuading the District Attorney 
and the Police Chief not to speak up in favor of this 
execution. 

  

  

  

  

(4) Finally, if andy Young has any advices or ideas based 
upon his own vast knowledge of Georgia politics, ve 

  

want the benefit of that advice. 

jcb 

3 
TOTAL F.24 

MAy 28 '&lL 1E:43 919 862 1277 PAGE.@24 

 



  

  

  
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