Yes I will finish 'Ulysses' this time Yes

I am gearing up for Bloomsday (June 16) by taking another, no doubt futile, stab at reading James Joyce's novel Ulysses all the way through - or, for that matter, appreciably past the sparkling opening section, which holds my attention so much better than anything that comes after it does.

I picked up my battered, old 1984 reprint of the Penguin Modern Classics edition, the one with Lawrence Mynott's Cubist portrait of the author on the cover. This thing has been everywhere with me. I can see it even has been to a Sun Dance ceremony on a Lakota reservation, because the flyleaf bears the signature and address of a man I met there.

I sat down this morning to tell his story - it's an amazing story; a terrible story - but now I'm thinking that it's not mine to tell.

For this morning, as I was looking up the word "flyleaf" to make sure that is the right word, my web browser froze. When I restarted it, we had lost internet and phone service. When we got service back this evening and I returned to finish this post, I saw that none of my friend's story, which I had started to tell, had been autosaved before the web connection was lost.

It was probably just a coincidence, but one never knows. I met this man at an ancient, sacred ceremony, and we shared some remarkable, indeed unearthly, experiences. I am just respectful enough of spiritual power - or "superstitious," if you'd like - to take a hint when I think a hint has been given.

I will tell a different story, however, about Ulysses and my first trip to a Sun Dance ceremony. I got religion at this ceremony, which was the last thing I expected to do (I attended simply to drive someone else home). I had a number of experiences on the reservation I had to classify as "spiritual," never having had any experiences anything like them.

I ended up, soon after the ceremony, on the eastern end of Long Island, at the summer house of a friend. I was still living in a strange private world, tinged by what I had experienced on the reservation, and it wasn't allowing me to sleep much. One long fitful night in the Hamptons, I found myself wishing I had not left my copy of Ulysses (which, once again, I was trying to finish) back at my friend's apartment in the city.

Only partly joking, I asked the spirit world to go fetch my copy of Ulysses and bring it out to East Hampton. "If you are really still with me" (as I had reason to believe), "and you are so powerful ..."

I drifted off to sleep feeling ridiculous, and woke up feeling even more ridiculous. Though I admit I did look around the room for my copy of Ulysses. No surprise: No spirit courier had come to my rescue.

My friend ran an errand to the post office that morning, and I tagged along. As I was walking into the post office, someone was walking out and he almost ran right into me. I remember the man's large, shy smile as he apologized. Then, I saw what was printed on his T-shirt:

I said yes I will Yes

This is the last line in Ulysses.

Reginald Clemons files stay of execution in 8th Circuit

This afternoon counsel for Reginald Clemons filed for a stay of execution in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

Clemons is one of several inmates on Missouri death row who have filed a consolidated appeal to the constitutionality of their being executed by the State of Missouri.

The appeal pending before the 8th circuit argues that because the Missouri Department of Corrections has a history of hiring incompetent staff for its execution team, whose errors result in excruciating pain for the condemned at death, there is reason to believe proceeding with execution would violate the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The filing today argues that rejecting Clemons' request for a stay and proceeding with the execution would result in "irreparable harm" to Clemons should he be executed and the pending consolidated appeal subsequently be upheld by the 8th Circuit.

Clemons' counsel also requested time for a "modest" process of discovery in pursuing their appeal, such as deposing current Corrections staff and investigating their record.

Last week, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected a stay of execution for Clemons based on the pending federal appeal. Two attorneys who work for the State of Missouri, speaking on background, considered it more likely that the court considering the appeal - the 8th Circuit - would grant a stay based on the pending appeal.

Clemons, who was convicted in 1993 as an accomplice in the murders of Robin Kerry and Julie Kerry and sentenced to death, is scheduled to be executed on June 17.

Clemons claimed two days after his confession in 1991 that the confession was rehearsed and coerced by St. Louis Metropolitan Police detectives. This allegedly rehearsed and coerced confession was to rape, not to murder. Clemons was charged with rape in the case but has never been tried for it.

Clemons has long claimed he is innocent on all charges. For many years he has requested that the State of Missouri try him on the charge of rape, as it has never done, although jurors were instructed to consider the charge of rape as a sentence enhancer when they condemned Clemons to death.

"There was no evidence of rape, yet it was used to enflame the passions of the public and the passions of the jury," Clemons said today in a phone call from death row.

"The best thing I can do is try to push the rape charge to trial and try to void the premise they are using to push this execution."

You can’t call her, don’t call her, she isn't answering

I don't recommend doing this, but I read a poem over the phone to a friend this morning while I was driving to work.

He is separated from his wife, her decision, and he wants his family back. He knows if he pushes too hard he will push her further away, though, so he is spending a lot of his lonely time trying not to call her.

We have all been there. I wrote a poem about it. I published it in my chapbook, A Heart I Carved For a Girl I Knew, which I had handy. So I read it to him as I drove down Lindell:

I take not calling her like a pill,
one a day, I can beat this thing,
one day at a time, I don’t need to
call her, it won’t do any good,
it will only make it worse,
she isn’t answering my calls.
I accept this truth like a pill,
I take one once a day, all day long,
you can’t call her, don’t call her,
she isn’t answering your calls,
shut up, you sad, stupid man,
put down the telephone, take a pill.

"That's what I need to do," he said. "I need to take that pill."

And then we put down the phone.

*

My sketch is of a "turn of your phone" sign at Anne Hathaway's Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon, part of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Portrait of Jay Bennett, in Wilco's rock heyday

When I heard the musician Jay Bennett had died at age 45, I remembered I sketched Wilco live in New York City at Irving Plaza during the band's heydey as a melodic rock unit. This is a closeup with Jay and bandleader Jeff Tweedy. (I couldn't get my camera to focus up close on just Jay without getting blurry.)

Widening out, we bring in then drummer Ken Coomer. Jay was part of the band that fired Ken before the band later fired Jay. I'm only a passing admirer of the band, but every rock fan somehow knows the personnel vicissitudes of Wilco.

Pulling out further, we let bassist John Stirrat into the picture. I remember first hearing of John around the St. Louis music scene when he was with Blue Mountain. I assume that was when and how Tweedy met him. When Tweedy split from Uncle Tupelo, where he had played bass, to form Wilco, he jumped on guitar and nabbed John Stirrat as his bassist and has stuck with him.

Here is the whole band that night. Wish I had dated the damn thing. I'm assuming the other guy is Max Johnston, who (again) the indie scene in St. Louis knew as "Michelle Shocked's brother" when he first started tagging along on Uncle Tupelo gigs.

I have known most of these guys, to some extent, at one time or another, but never Jay Bennett. It's almost weird that I didn't get to know him. My musical partner Elijah Shaw knew him well. We were together that night at Irving Plaza and were expected to visit with the band backstage (which was really upstairs, as I recall), but we never made it. I can't remember why not - something better to do than visit with a band that was buzzing on that loopy gig adrenaline, I guess.

Jay later formed a duet with Edward Burch, who is married to an old friend of Lij's and mine from college band days. Our band was first called Enormous Richard, and an early live favorite of ours was a portrait song called "Tribal Rachel". That's Rachel Leibowitz, who married Edward Burch. I sent Rachel a note of condolence to pass along to her husband via an old email address she may not even be checking anymore. I haven't heard back yet. I am truly sorry for their loss.

Jay Bennett was a vastly talented musician. He had a talent for adding parts to songs that sounded like they had always been there. I am not saying his parts were predictable - they were essential and sounded effortless, though I know they were carefully wrought.

I would say I always wanted to work with him, but it's not true - only because Lij has so many of the same musical qualities, and I still (thank God) have access to Lij and his many talents. Like Jay, Lij can play any instrument he picks up, he can always imagine a part you wouldn't want the song to live without once you have heard it, and he can also record, mix, and master the song while he is at it.

When I think of the enormous emptiness I would feel if I couldn't work with Lij anymore or enjoy his company, then I can imagine how Edward Burch must feel to lose Jay Bennett. I am sorry for their loss and I wish Jay Bennett were still alive.

A slideshow of my symphony sketches

Three Turkish poems for America's Memorial Day

Somewhat unusually, I suppose, on this Memorial Day in the United States I am thinking of a Turkish poem by Orhan Veli.

FOR THIS COUNTRY
By Orhan Veli

What didn't we do for this country
Some of us died
Some gave speeches

- Translated Defne Halman and Chris King

This wry little poem gets right at the way I feel about so many public displays of patriotism.

Some of us died
Some gave speeches

The ones with the most to say are seldom the ones doing the most talking. This basic fact of human experience is especially true of war. Witness the previous U.S. presidential administration, with a Pentagon run hawkishly by civilians with an almost unanimous history of dodging military service - including the commander in chief.

Another Orhan Veli poem that I co-translated with the great Turkish actor Defne Halman speaks beautifully to the anguished feeling of sending off a soldier.

BLONDE BOY GONE TO WAR
By Orhan Veli

Come back as beautiful as you are
The smell of sea on your lips
Salt on your eyelashes
Blonde boy gone to war

- Translated Defne Halman and Chris King

I have had the smell of the sea on my lips from the U.S. Navy. I was in Navy ROTC for one year at Boston University, bookended by a bootcamp at Fort Devens and a summer of active duty aboard the USS Saipan in the Mediterranean. It wasn't much of a tour of duty, though it taught me as much as anything else I have ever done.

I learned - as anyone who has ever been ranked as an enlisted man (as I was, aboard the Saipan) learns - that the typical serviceman feels mostly neglected and forgotten. Police officers tend to feel the same way for the same reasons. There is the feeling of being used by the political right for its crass purposes and scorned by the political left based upon the wicked misdeeds of a few, but not properly understood or rewarded by anyone.

This Orhan Veli poem gets to that abandoned feeling.

EPITAPH III
By Orhan Veli

They put his rifle in the depot
They gave his clothes to someone else
No bread crumbs in his bag anymore
No lip traces on his canteen
Such a wind that it blew away
And not even his name remained as a souvenir
Only a couplet remained
Handwritten above the coffee stove:
"Death is God's decree
If only parting wasn't a part of it"

- Translated Defne Halman and Chris King

By the way, I wish President Obama would use some of his substantial political capital to push for compulsory military service in the U.S. That is the only way the American people will ever genuinely understand this complex, expensive, dangerous and valuable military we are paying for - and that is, in fact, risking lives to pursue our foreign policies and protect our nation.

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Orhan Veli's military I.D. card from a Dizifil forum.

Bridge over troubled prosecutions

My day job as editor of The St. Louis American has knocked my blogging temporarily out of commission, what with Reginald Clemons being handed his death warrant by the Missouri Supreme Court the same week Paul McKee Jr. made his most public presentation of his proposed development in North St. Louis.

Two big, and very different, stories for St. Louis. I did say the stories are very different. I'll pass on the metaphor of McKee as rapist of the North Side (thanks).

Our paper has been following the Chain of Rocks Bridge rapes and murders since 1991, when the tragedy transpired. In the five years I have been at the paper, Marlin Gray - one of Clemons' co-defendants - was executed. We have all been waiting for Reginald Clemons' number to come up next. His number, it turns out, is June 17, 2009.

We got the news on Monday, and between running my brokenlegged wife to doctor's appointments along with every family errand, I managed to put together what I consider a very newsy and thoroughly sourced story about Clemons' legal status, even reporting the grounds on which his lawyers were filing a stay of execution before they had filed it.

A friend of mine, who knew the Kerry girls who were raped and murdered that April night in 1991, read my story and sent me a note. He said he understood that there are different standards of justice for black men and white men in St. Louis and Missouri, but wasn't there a more important question: Did Reginald Clemons rape and kill those girls?

I wrote him back to say my story was a news story about what was new. What was new was that his execution date had been set and his lawyers had apparently good grounds for requesting a stay - namely, that Clemons had an appeal pending. I reminded him that, unless Clemons' conviction for murder were reversed and a new trial date set, his guilt or innocence was beside the point, in terms of the disposition of his case. His problems were procedural now and his solutions were procedural, and a news report on his case that had any juice would have to be procedural.

I later called my friend to point out that I had been thinking and responding as a journalist when I answered his question. I also happen to be a human being and (like my friend) the father of a little girl, and yes, I do understand, the question of guilt and innocence in matters of rape and murder do matter dearly.

As I noted the last time I had the presence of mind to blog, there is evidence that Clemons' confession was beat out of him. As I now read the appeal his lawyers prepared for the Missouri Supreme Court in 1996 (which the court rejected), it suggested Clemons confessed to rape before the alleged beatings, adding a murder confession afterwards. I look forward to interviewing Clemons face-to-face on camera next week and giving him an opportunity to come clean, once and for all, about what happened that night (a fantasy all journalists entertain regarding people with disputed convictions, I know).

I have posted up his lawyers' appeal, for all to read. I don't understand why this document didn't convince the Missouri Supreme Court that Reginald Clemons deserved a new trial. The presentation of prosecutorial misconduct on the part of Nels Moss seems clear to me. Though I don't present myself as an expert on Missouri case law, the legal precedents are laid out along the way and seem to be compelling.

This following bit alone is amazing to me. I reprint from the appeal verbatim, taking out only citations. Antonio Richardson was another of the four co-defendants. He is serving life in prison. "Daniel" or "Danny" was Daniel Winfrey, the fourth co-defendant (and the only one who was not black). He cooperated with the prosecution and is out on parole today.

*

In Clemons' trial, Moss argued that Clemons was the criminal mastermind and the prime actor in the murder of the Kerrys. The prosecutor frequently referred to the diminutive size and youth of Antonio Richardson, and minimized Antonio Richardson's role in the events on the Bridge, while maximizing Clemons' culpability:

[Referring to Antonio Richardson] This massive five-foot-five, one-forty pound teenager, and his buddy, this massive hulk, he's the mastermind. He's the planner, is that really true—honestly—who has been to the bridge before, and Marlin who has been to the bridge before—not Daniel. And who led two out of the three people to the hole. Was it Marlin? No. Was it Tony? No. Was it Danny? No. Who led two out of the three people to the hold? He did [indicating Clemons].

But in Antonio Richardson's trial, the prosecutor stated:

Who's the person, and listen to this, please, who's the person that led this first
young lady to that killing hole like leading a lamb to slaughter. Who? Who?
Was it Marlin Gray? Was it Reginald Clemons? It was him [Referring to Antonio Richardson]. It was him who did it. No one else.

Moss further described Antonio Richardson as "...five foot five, a hundred seventy pound or a hundred sixty pounds," as opposed to the mere one hundred and forty pounds ascribed to Antonio Richardson during the Clemons trial.

One of these statements was simply not true. And Moss, who made both of them, knew it. The State cannot manipulate the facts to suit an overwhelming desire for a conviction. That is what happened here; it violated Clemons rights under the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

*

I know for a fact Julie and Robin Kerry are dead, and their parents and families were robbed of many years of joy. I doubt that we will ever get a truly clear and convincing picture of what happened on that bridge that night and who played precisely what role in their rapes and murders.

I am also certain that the public record of events as handed down from the trials is terribly flawed and points to errors in criminal justice that deserve to be corrected, if we believe in the rule of law. Or, if the reasoning is that two black men should die because two white women were killed, regardless of how the prosections are arrived at, I would rather that be admitted and not obscured under tortured readings of crystal-clear appeals.

**

View from Chain of Rocks Bridge from somebody's Flickr site.

Appellant claims the police beat him

I am reading the Missouri Supreme Court's 1997 ruling when it upheld Reginald Clemons' conviction for murder and his death sentence. In this passage, the court is reviewing Clemons' claim that his confession should not have been considered because St. Louis police beat it out of him.

*

Appellant claims the police beat him, rendering his confession involuntary.

At the suppression hearing, appellant testified that the police officers conducting the interrogation beat him about the head and chest and slammed his head against the wall. The detectives involved categorically denied that any physical contact occurred. Appellant's initial attorney in this matter testified that he visited appellant in a holding cell at police headquarters the afternoon of April 8th, some 14 hours after appellant's interview had concluded, and observed that the right side of appellant's face was swollen.

However, Warren Williams, a friend of appellant's family who is employed as a police officer, visited appellant at the request of appellant's mother and saw appellant literally minutes before appellant's attorney arrived. Williams testified that he did not observe any sign of injury.

The next day, April 9, at appellant's arraignment, the presiding judge ordered that appellant be examined at the emergency room at the Regional Hospital. According to the hospital records, appellant was diagnosed with myalgia [pain in one or more muscles], mild myositis [inflammation of the muscles] and a swollen right cheek.

Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling, we find sufficient evidence to support the trial court's finding that appellant's confession was voluntary. The trial court had the opportunity to judge the credibility of the witnesses and obviously found the state's witnesses' testimony more credible than appellant's.

While there was additional testimony from appellant's family that appellant's face was swollen, all of these observations were made some 48 hours or more after appellant's interview and confession. The evidence, including the hospital records, simply does not demonstrate either when or how appellant incurred any injury. Nor does it establish that an injury actually occurred at the hands of the police officers conducting his interview.

*

Did you get that? The judge arraigning this guy the day after he was interrogated thought he looked so bad he sent him to the emergency room. And there is reasonable doubt that he sustained those injuries during the interrogation?

Nowhere in Clemons interrogation is he asked where he got any injuries - because if he had injuries going into the interrogation, that would have been used against him as evidence that he had been involved in foul play on the Chain of Rocks Bridge. But the Missouri Supreme Court ruled his having injuries coming out of police interrogation does not establish "that an injury actually occurred at the hands of the police officers conducting his interview".

The State of Missouri has scheduled an execution for Reginal Clemons on June 17.

Inflaming the jury with a gory, hypothetical crime

I am reviewing the Missouri Supreme Court's 1997 ruling that upheld Reginal Clemons' conviction for muder and his death sentence. Yesterday a warrant was issued for his execution; he is scheduled to "suffer death" on June 17.

Clemons' case has long been covered as a textbook example of prosecutorial misconduct and the miscarriage of justice. The following excerpt from the 1997 ruling includes a choice quote from prosecutor Nel Moss. Check out the over-the-top, inflammatory language he uses as an exmaple to the jury.

The girls who died fell to their death from a bridge, they were not knifed; and there is no physical evidence that they were raped at all, let alone at knifepoint.

*

Appellant claims that the prosecutor discussed a hypothetical crime in order to inflame the jury, and that defense counsel should have taken steps to prevent this highly prejudicial hypothetical from reaching the jury's ears. The prosecutor [Nels Moss] said:

MR. MOSS: The man (Clemons) was co-equal with Mr. Antonio Richardson who pushed them off and Mr. Gray who organized it ... If you look at the evidence, that's what it is. Let me give you an example. What would you do if you had these ... two girls and the fellow outside of a room, and he raped them, both of them, he robbed the guy, and the other guys raped them, and it's at night, and so they send the girls into the dark.

MR. MOSS: Save my time.

MR. CONSTANTINOU: Just a minute, Your Honor, he's mischaracterizing the evidence, it's not something that's been introduced.

THE COURT: Proceed. Overruled, proceed.

MR. MOSS: The rape is outside this room and then you send them into a dark room. Okay? All of these three -- of these people in a dark room. And Mr. Antonio Richardson goes into that dark room with a knife. And Mr. Clemons goes in there with a knife, and Mr. Gray and Mr. Winfrey stand outside; and the door is closed; and it's dark, nobody can see anything

And when all is said and done, you open the door, and Tom Cummins is not dead, but he's laying there knifed.

And Julie Kerry is laying there dead, with ten stab wounds in her; Robin Kerry is laying there dead with ten stab wounds in her. Okay? What do you know? Tom Cummins can't say, because it was dark, who put the ten stab wounds in Julie, who put the ten stab wounds in Robin, or who put the stab wounds in him.

But you know darn good and well the only two people who walked into that dark room with a weapon and the knives, you know, in fact, were him and the other guy. So what are you going to say? Okay? You got a bonus if you had a light bulb on, it would have made a difference. But we're going to distinguish now because we really don't know. It don't piecemeal out like that, when these fellows work together like
that.

Appellant argues that this argument rendered his trial unfair because it misstated the basic tenets of accomplice liability; it was not remotely based on the evidence at trial; and was irrelevant to any issue presented at trial. While appellant correctly observes that his counsel did object early on in the particular argument at issue and was overruled, appellant contends that this objection was constitutionally insufficient, and that counsel should have continued to object as the prosecutor's hypothetical grew more egregious.

*

Image from Jamie Voetsch.

Warrant of execution issued for Reggie Clemons

The Missouri Supreme Court today handed down an order setting an execution date of June 17 for Reggie Clemons.

It then issued a warrant to that effect.

On June 17, the warrant says in the notoriously stiff diction of legal language, Reggie Clemons "shall suffer death".

Clemons' advocates have established a website that details his dubious experience of the justice system in St. Louis and Missouri.

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Lethal injection setup image from Death Row Speaks.

'Death certainly would soon close the scene'

Still making my way through the transcipts of the military trial investigating a possible conspiracy behind the murder of President Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln's personal physician, Dr. Robert King Stone, was called to the stand as a witness for the prosecution. His primary burden of proof seemed to be identifying the bullet he dug out of the dead president's skull and tying it to a pistol that also had been introduced into evidence.

But his entire testimony is of interest. It shows the primitive state of health care in 1865, when even the president of the United States was "treated" in a private home after being shot in the head. When you read what was done for the dying Lincoln, you'll see why I scare-quote "treated".

Compare in your imagination the minimalist "treatment" Lincoln's blown-open skull received to the medical hysteria surrounding a contemporary president, say, choking on a pretzel!

Dr. Robert King Stone takes the stand.

I was sent for by Mrs. Lincoln immediately after the assassination. I arrived in a very few moments, and found that the President had been removed from the theater to the house of a gentleman living directly opposite; and had been carried into the back room of the residence, and was there placed upon a bed. I found a number of gentlemen, citrzens, around him, and, among others, two assistant surgeons of the army, who had brought him over from the theater, and had attended to him. They immediately gave the case over to my care, knowing my relations to the family.

I proceeded to examine the President, and found that he had received a gun-shot wound in the back part of the left side of his head, into which I carried my finger. I at once informed those around that the case was a hopeless one; that the President would die; that there was no positive limit to the duration of his life; that his vital tenacity was very strong, and he would resist as long as any man could; but that death certainly would soon close the scene.

I remained with him, doing whatever was in my power, assisted by my friends; but, of course, nothing could be done, and he died from the wound the next morning at about half-past 7 o clock. It was about a quarter past 10 that I reached him.

The next day, previous to the process of embalmment, an examination was made in the presence of Surgeon-General Barnes, Dr. Curtis, and Dr. Woodward, of the army. We traced the wound through the brain, and the ball was found in the anterior part of the game side of the brain, the left side; it was a large ball, resembling those which are shot from the pistol known as the Derringer; an unusually large ball that is, larger than those used in the ordinary pocket revolvers. It was a leaden hand-made ball, and was flattened somewhat in its passage through the skull, and a portion had been cut off in going through the bone.

I marked the ball “A.L.”; the initials of the late President, and in the presence of the Secretary of War, in his office, inclosed it in an envelope, sealed it with my private seal, and indorsed it with my name. The Secretary inclosed it in an other envelope, which he indorsed in like manner, and sealed with his private seal. It was left in his custody, and he ordered it to be placed among the archives of his department.

[An official envelope, sealed with the official seal of the Secretary of War, was here opened by the Judge Advocate in the presence of the witness, from which was taken a Derringer pistol and an envelope containing a leaden ball in two pieces.]

This is the ball which I extracted from the head of the President; I recognize it from the mark which I put upon it with my pen-knife, as well as from the shape of the ball. This smaller piece is the fragment which was cut off in its passage through the skull. The ball was flattened, as I have before described.

[The ball was then offered in evidence.]

This bullet now is on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.
*

Image of Dr. Robert King Stone from The National Archives.