Paul Kreutzer Clemency Letter (4/9/2002)
EXECUTED APRIL 2002 The Honorable Bob Holden
Governor of the State of Missouri
Missouri Capital Building Rm.216
P.O. Box 720
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0720 Dear Governor Holden: Dear Governor Holden: Paul Kreutzer is scheduled to be executed on April 10, 2002. On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, we urge you to commute Mr. Kreutzer s sentence of death to life imprisonment. A stunning combination of factors in this case merits this extraordinary relief. Mr. Kreutzer, still a young man, came into the world in the most unfortunate of circumstances, which never improved throughout his life. Born into a family of alcohol and drug abuse, he was physically abused before he could even talk or walk. By the age of three, when he was adopted by the Kreutzers, he had already experienced having his nose broken. All of the details of Mr. Kreutzer s horrible childhood are too numerous to recite in this letter. Suffice it to say that beating was the young Paul Kreutzer s most normal punishment. The more extravagant forms included being forced to drink his own urine, being placed in a wooden box, being starved, being chained to his bed with a heavy dog chain, and having sex with farm animals. By the time he became a teenager, Paul had developed a sexual obsession with his sister and had an IQ bordering on mental retardation. At the age of 14 or 15, he escaped abuse by running away from home. Mr. Kreutzer s jury, however, was not allowed to hear evidence of this unbelievable abuse. Nor did Mr. Kreutzer have a chance to have his habeas petition considered by the Eighth Circuit, a result of a mistake by his inexperienced lawyers. The ACLU opposes capital punishment in all cases as a barbarous anachronism and in violation of the U.S. Constitution. In Mr. Kreutzer s case, the extraordinary relief of clemency is particularly warranted, in mercy and as an act of grace, because the State cannot simply discard his life as defective. Sincerely, Diann Rust-Tierney
ACLU Capital Punishment Project Matt LiMieux
ACLU of Eastern Missouri Vladimir Kouznetsov
Pro Bono Counsel
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P.
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