Drunk Off Hate. From [HERE] and [MORE] A black South Carolina man should be released from death row because a white prosecutor's "racially coded references" made a fair sentencing before an all-white jury impossible, according to a ruling issued Monday by a panel of appellate judges.
The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) on Monday in a habeas appeal by Johnny Bennett, who was convicted of murder, kidnapping and armed robbery. He was sentenced to death by an all-white jury in 2000 after reversal of his original death sentence. Bennett, 46, has been on South Carolina's death row for more than two decades.
The prosecutor, identified in the opinion as Donald Myers [racist suspect in video above], “chose to use racially charged language from the first sentence of his opening argument to his final soliloquy,” the appeals court said, “casting aside the race-neutral presentation he had employed” with the first, mixed-race jury that sentenced Bennett to death. Myers is known as “Death Penalty Donnie” for having sent 28 South Carolina defendants to death row. [MORE] Myers was recently convicted of DUI. [MORE] See video above and below. (below notice the cop and Myers' interaction: in general, white people treat each other humanely but function as psychopaths with non-whites)
In a second sentencing proceeding in 2000, this one before an all-white jury, Solicitor Donnie Myers in his closing argument compared Bennett — who at that time was 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 300 pounds — to "King Kong on a bad day." Myers is white.
The issue in the appeal was focused on phrases used by the lead county prosecutor in support of the death sentence. According to Monday’s opinion:
The most egregious appeals to racial prejudice came in his closing argument, in which [county prosecutor Donald Myers] referred to Bennett using a slew of derogatory terms. Myers admonished the jury, “Meeting [Bennett] again will be like meeting King Kong on a bad day.” He also labeled Bennett a “caveman,” a “mountain man,” a “monster,” a “big old tiger,” and “[t]he beast of burden.” In addition, Myers intentionally elicited irrelevant, inflammatory testimony from one of the state’s witnesses, who recounted a dream in which he was chased by murderous, black Indians. While cross-examining a defense witness, Myers alluded to Bennett’s sexual partner as “the blonde-headed lady,”
A U.S. district court judge viewed the references to the defendant in front of an all-white jury as “a not so subtle dog whistle on race that this Court cannot and will not ignore.”
Myers' comments, the appellate judges wrote, "mined a vein of historical prejudice against African-Americans." The "King Kong" comment in particular, they noted, "stoked race-based fears by conjuring the image of a gargantuan, black ape who goes on a killing spree and proceeds to swing the frail, white, blonde Fay Wray at the top of the Empire State Building."
Fourth Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, who wrote Monday’s opinion, agreed:
The prosecutor’s comments were poorly disguised appeals to racial prejudice. It is impossible to divorce the prosecutor’s “King Kong” remark, “caveman” label, and other descriptions of a black capital defendant from their odious historical context. And in context, the prosecutor’s comments mined a vein of historical prejudice against African-Americans, who have been appallingly disparaged as primates or members of a subhuman species in some lesser state of evolution. We are mindful that courts “should not lightly infer that a prosecutor intends an ambiguous remark to have its most damaging meaning.”… But here, “the prosecutor’s remarks were quite focused, unambiguous, and strong.”…. The comments plugged into potent symbols of racial prejudice, encouraging the jury to fear Bennett or regard him as less human on account of his race.
John Blume, a lawyer for Mr. Bennett, praised the ruling. “It is antithetical to the criminal justice system for a prosecutor to pander to an all-white jury’s racial fears and implicit biases,” he told the Wall Street Journal.