January Headlines:

• Kenneth Kenley scheduled for Execution Feb. 5: Contact the Governor

• Attend Oral Arguments for Joe Amrine

• Two Wrongs don't make a Right: the Draft still evil

• Injustice of the Death Penalty in Missouri

• Anti-Death Penalty Bills filed this Session

• MU Professor Faces trial for SOA Civil Disobedience

• Vieques Movement Succeeds!

• Val Hinshaw, activist and friend of Columba died December 19, 2002

• Mid-Mo FOR involved in Prisoner Advocacy

State Plans to Kill once Again
Please contact Gov. Bob Holden, by letter, Capitol Bldg. Room 216, Jefferson City MO 65101 or fax 573-751-1495; or by calling 573-751-3222.

There are many reasons why Kenneth Kenley should be allowed to continue living. Top among the list: he along with billions of other beings on the planet are humans with an inherent, God-given right to life. That doesn’t seem to be enough for the state of Missouri though. Officials plan to execute him late Tuesday night, in the opening minutes of 5 February.

Eighteen years ago this month, Kenley went on a day-long crime spree in Poplar Bluff and northern Arkansas. He robbed three businesses (was thwarted at a fourth) and shot three people. Two of the individuals survived. Kenley was sentenced to death for fatally shooting the third, Ronald Felts. We with the FOR condemn the violence he committed, mourn Felts’s death and extend sympathy to all individuals victimized by his vile deeds. We also lament the likely prospects of Missouri workers killing Kenley, he’d be the 60^th person executed since 1989.

There’s no doubt Kenley’s guilty. According to one of his attorneys, Jennifer Herndon, the victims’ families will unfortunately most likely not receive a public apology from Kenley for his wrongdoings. It’s not that he’s gleeful about the violent actions, nor is he remorseful, she says, he’s incapable of such emotions. How he got to this point, bears consideration….

Dr. Stephen Peterson, a psychiatrist, conducted one of the first thorough reviews of Kenley, a few years after the crimes and diagnosed him as having borderline personality disorder (BPD), major depressive disorder and dementia. Peterson attributed at least the dementia, the impairment of his mental abilities, to brain damage from beatings by his father, two car-accidents plus severe drug and alcohol abuse. Dr. Robert Smith, a clinical psychologist who assessed Kenley during post-conviction proceedings, concluded BPD, along with alcohol, sedative and cocaine dependencies were present at the time of his crimes and "interfered with Kenneth’s ability to clearly reflect on what he was doing and resulted in a diminished capacity to process what was occurring." That doesn’t pardon him but it helps understand how such violence happened.

Kenley has been living under a tortuous death sentence longer than any other Missouri prisoner. He was born to Shirley Murphy. She was just 16-years old with a 4^th grade education. His father, Melvin, has an IQ of approximately 60, indicating mental retardation. His mother left the family for a decade beginning when Kenley was five, in part due to Melvin’s abusive behavior. Soon after, Kenneth began wetting his bed. His father in turn, whipped the son and rubbed the wet sheets in his face.

Kenley dropped out of the 8^th grade at age 14. He had one prior violent offense, an armed robbery prior to his string of crimes. Herndon says her client would be a good commutation candidate for a life-prison sentence, as he presents no threat to others in the prison. Several years ago he did temporarily take hostage, the prison’s librarian who sustained no physical injury. The attorney adds, otherwise, Kenley’s behavior remains good. Much depends on Kenley receiving from the prison health staff, the correct medications to control his mental illness. Hopefully, Missouri officials will act appropriately and spare his life.

Attend Oral Arguments
for Joe Amrine
9:00 a.m. Tuesday, 4 February
Missouri Supreme Court, Jefferson City

The state’s high court took the extraordinary decision to reconsider issues of innocence in the case of Joe Amrine, featured in the acclaimed documentary, Unreasonable Doubt: The Joe Amrine Case,

Amrine, was sentenced to death for allegedly, fatally stabbing a fellow prisoner, Gary Barber in 1985 at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. All three of the state major trial witnesses—also fellow prisoners, all have since recanted, admitting they lied. Let’s fill up the courtroom and show the public support for Joe Amrine. Call 573-449-4585 for more details,

His case is powerfully presented in the acclaimed documentary, "Unreasonable Doubt: the Case of Joe Amrine," directed by John McHale, edited by Ryan Wylie and produced by McHale, Wylie, and Dan Huck. It is available for rental at 9th St. Video in Columbia and through the FOR at no charge for home or public viewings. Call Jeff at 449-4585 for details. You may also contact to recieve/borrow a copy of the documentary in Kansas City, the Western Missouri Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, in St. Louis, the Eastern Missouri Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (314-241-8062).

For more information about his case check out the Amnesty International report, released in mid-June. Log on to Amnesty International (If you can't access through a pdf format, try typing in "rtf" instead at the end of the address.)
More information...

Although the recent observations of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) are right about poor and minority kids making up a disproportionate part of the enlisted ranks of the armed forces, drafting the rest of our kids is not the way to correct the evil of violence and war. Evil does not become good by making it more universal.

If it is wrong to send our economically deprived kids to kill and die in the sands of Iraq—which it is—it is equally insane to provide the administration with millions of additional kids for the same purpose in Iraq and other countries that the administration dislikes.

Rather than reviving a military draft, we should repeal the whole selective service system, stop the flow of our troops to the Gulf region and return home our military personnel stationed abroad.

Then, perhaps, we could afford to both fund the pressing needs of many of our own and other peoples of the world for housing, food, medical care and education while at the same time, serving as a beacon for a more peaceful world. As we used to say in the Vietnam War days, "Whatever the question, the draft is not the answer."

Injustice of the Death Penalty in Missouri

The U.S. Supreme Court, in their 1977 Gregg decision essentially promised our nation, state courts could impose the death penalty fairly and consistently. Gov. George Ryan, a former death-penalty, understood differently after he closely scrutinized his state’s system, set free a few men he believed were innocent then commuted the death sentences of more than 160 individuals. A study, "The Prevailing Injustices in the Application of the Death Penalty in Missouri (1978-1996)," recently released shows capital punishment’s been applied in a very arbitrary, capricious and racist manner in our state as well.

Conducted by sociology instructors Michael Lenza with the University of Missouri-Columbia, David Keys now with the State University of New York, Plattsburgh and Teresa Guess with the University of Missouri-St. Louis, it is the most comprehensive study yet of sentencing practices in the state. It examined trial judge reports and FBI data from nearly ten thousand homicides in Missouri during that 18-year period. They reported that just 152 or 1.5% of all homicides ultimately ended in a death sentence.

Prosecutors in Missouri have complete discretion to determine who will be considered for a death sentence. They charged defendants with capital murder in less than 5.8% of all those homicides. Proponents contend such a relatively few being singled out proves just the "worst of the worst" receive the harshest of sentences. Several other factors, however—especially race, both of the defendant and the victim and the defendant’s economic standing-- figure much more prominently, according to the study.

Lenza found Blacks accused of killing White victims were five times more likely to be charged with capital murder than Blacks accused of killing Black victims. About 64-percent of all homicide victims in Missouri from 1978-96 were African-Americans, primarily because they dwell disproportionately in poverty and thus in more crime-ridden communities. However, just about 25-percent of those people who have been executed from 1989 to the present, had been convicted of killing an African-American. It seems that White life is assigned a greater value in our judicial system.

While prosecuting attorneys may not consciously be bigoted, the system is institutionally racist. Professor Jeffrey Pokorak of St. Mary’s University School of Law in 1998, collecting data nationwide, found that every one of the 115 county prosecutors across Missouri was Caucasian, none were African-American. People do tend to empathize more easily with individuals like themselves, including during times of violent loss.

Among some of the other findings: Individuals accused of killing a stranger was six times more likely to be charged with capital murder than someone who was acquainted with the victim; male defendants were three times more likely to be charged with capital murder than were female defendants; and defendants with public defenders or court-appointed attorneys—reflecting poverty-level income—were 73% more likely to be sentenced to death by juries in capital trials than were defendants with private attorneys. While Missouri officials publicly discuss confidence in the state’s death-penalty system, this study offers yet one more cause to pause, and impose at least a moratorium on executions in Missouri.

We have also posted a more detailed report (Microsoft Word document 272k)

Anti-Death Penalty Bills filed for the 2003 Legislative Session

Contact your legislators and ask them to support the anti-death penalty bills. Please thank the bill sponsors for their moral leadership.

To find your legislators check the Missouri government site.

MU Professor Michael Ugarte Faces trial for School of the Americas Civil Disobedience

I trespassed on the property of Ft. Benning in Georgia as an act of civil disobedience protesting the existence of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (aka, School of the Americas or SOA) because of the long history that "School" has had as a training ground for state terrorists.  There has been a documented history of crimes against indigenous peoples of Latin America committed by graduates of this "school" and financed by US tax payers through the US military.

As a professor at the Univ. of Missouri, ethically and intellectually I feel strongly that it is not enough to bring my students' attention to the injustices and many atrocities committed by Latin American military personnel with the full support and at times in obedience to the government and military of the United States.       

For this act of civil disobedience along with 85 others involved in the human rights organization SOA Watch, I will face trial on Feb. 10. I plan to plead guilty to the charge and to make a statement at the trial explaining why I crossed.  The maximum sentence for this Class B misdemeanor is 6 months in federal prison and a $5,000 fine. I hope the judge will decide against sentencing me to prison.   Among the 86 defendants there is certain to be those who will go to prison as an act of conscience.

—Michael Ugarte

(Editor’s Note: We thank Michael for his act of conscience and wish him an enlightened judgement—give those protestors medals for human service! Please keep him and the other defendants in your thoughts and prayers) 

VIEQUES MOVEMENT SUCCEEDS IN ENDING NAVAL BOMBING: ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH CRISIS CONTINUES.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation welcomes the U.S. Navy's formal certification that it will cease bombing exercises on the populated island of Vieques, Puerto Rico by May, 2003. While we applaud this action, we call upon the Navy to address the environmental and health crisis left on the island in the military's wake.

Navy Secretary Gordon England certified to Congress and President Bush that alternative methods and sites in Florida and North Carolina will be made available to replace the bombing range in Vieques, used by the Navy for more than 60 years for training and weapons tests.

"The navy's departure is testament to the widespread nonviolent protest organized by people of conscience, as Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vernon Clark himself acknowledged in the navy's certification. This protest has included massive civil disobedience by more than a thousand Puerto Ricans and their friends," said John Lindsay-Poland, Editor of Puerto Rico Update (available at www.forusa.org/Programs/puertorico/default.html)

In addition, the FOR calls for the navy to cancel bombing in Vieques Set to begin Monday and last more than four weeks. "Thousands of sailors with the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier battle group will train in Vieques for a bombing campaign in Iraq that will bring chaos to the Persian Gulf region and kill thousands of innocents," Lindsay-Poland stated.

The Puerto Rico Health Department has revealed that cancer rates in Vieques - already 27% higher than the rest of Puerto Rico in the late 1980s - continued to rise in the 1990s. Studies show high levels of cadmium, lead and other contaminants in the island's soil and vegetation and in residents' hair samples.

"It is time for the U.S. Navy to clean up the mess it has made in Vieques so as to prevent more people from dying of cancer," said Sonia Dueño, Coordinator of FOR's office in Washington on Vieques.

The FOR, the oldest interfaith peace organization in the United States, works to resolve conflicts through nonviolence education, training and coalition-building locally, nationally and globally. FOR has supported the islanders' efforts to oust the US Navy for five years and is organizing a health delegation to Vieques in February by environmental and health activists to address the elevated rates of cancer and contamination by heavy metals.

Val Hinshaw Will be Dearly Missed

Mid-Missouri was made a kinder and a more just place, thanks to the labors of Val Hinshaw. Her unexpected death 19 December in a car accident, markedly diminishes the brightness of this space, leaving a void we have no hope of filling. At least we can gratefully say our lives were enhanced through time shared with this sister, teacher, comadrie and friend. Her death is a profound loss to all people in our community longing, working to craft a more just society. She will continue to be sorely missed.

Val was actively involved in the Interfaith Peace Alliance, Missouri United Methodist Church, Mid-MO FOR, Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen, SERV (a Church of the Brethren project to foster self-sufficiency and fair commercial trade with 3^rd world artisans) and PATCH (Parents And Their Children, a program providing incarcerated women with a means to visit with their kids at the prison) and with many other endeavors.

One of my first encounters with Val came in the mid 1980’s at the former Renz women’s prison (closed when it flooded out last decade). This sweltering summer day, she was serving ice cream to the incarcerated women and visitors during a "social" which she and other PATCH volunteers organized. Despite dishing out scoops to dozens of thankful takers, Val persisted with her cheerfulness and seemed to somehow increase it, likely because she realized how much this event and the time given by volunteers, meant to each of the imprisoned women, individuals the rest of society had largely, long ago forgotten.

Regardless of the nature or intensity of the struggle, Val always seemed to manage to keep a gentleness about her. While others, myself included, might become somewhat agitated in the midst of debate on a particular issue, Val maintained not a persona, but the epitome of calm and compassion. There were plenty of times when Val could have been justified in emotionally venting in frustration over something someone else or myself may have done or said. I can not however, recall a single incident when she even raised her voice. She was extremely passionate and committed about so many concerns, so she could become deeply displeased about a particular situation, yet she was always able to separate the individual from the opinion or policy. Val was always willing and wanting to show respect for each being she encourntered, even those with whom she strongly disagreed. Such a joyful being. She lived in a constantly serving yet comfortable manner. And she also gave Christianity a really good name.

Val served for seven years on the Columbia School Board, volunteered with relief missions in Mozambique and Mexico, and was a fervent outdoorswoman. We extend our deepest condolences to her husband Harold, her grown children, David, Frank, Paul, Peter, Mary Ann, Tom and John and to her 11 grandchildren. As I had written before, I vividly recall sitting a few folks away from her during our inaugural Missouri Peace Coalition meeting in Columbia last month. She was busy knitting (as I later found out, a Harry Potter scarf for one of her grandsons. Wow, she really delighted in that role, enjoying traveling around the country to see those youngsters!). As was her nature, that day she readily exchanged a full grin with me, along with the glimmer that seemed to always reside in her eyes. Thank God, the Great Spirit for her presence among us. Let us remain all the more inspired to work for a more peaceable and just world, having been graced by her giving spirit.
-- Jeff Stack

Prisoner Advocacy

The Mid-Missouri FOR, long-concerned with conditions in our state prisons, has recently become involved in performing some advocacy work on behalf of those men and women incarcerated within the Department of Corrections. Thanks to research conducted by Gabrielle Peton and others, we have begun reviewing with other advocacy groups, the manner in which the DOC is calculating the time offenders must serve, claims of wrongful convictions, the quality of prison medical care and the recent changes being made through restructuring and reclassifying inmates. We will keep you updated of these and other developments when appropriate. Call 573-449-4585 if you want to assist in this FOR advocacy project.