Apartheid. USA 1988

October 3, 1987:

A death row case that has been dominated by emotional issues of race is now centering on vexing questions of who is telling the truth and who is not. What happened August 23, 1980 in a rest-room at Conroe High School in the East Texas town of Conroe when Cheryl Dee Fergeson, manager of a volley-ball team was raped and strangled. Clarence Brandley, the only black among the five school janitors, was soon charged with the crime. His first trial ended in a mistrial when an all-white jury voted 11-1 in favor of a conviction. A second all-white jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Mr Brandley had no way to prove his whereabouts at the time of the crime. The prosecution's evidence was based largely on testimony from the other four white janitors, who provided alibis for one another.

Last spring, days before his execution, defense attorneys produced video tapes in which two janitors gave dramatic

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new information. One janitor, John H Sensum, said he saw another white janitor, Gary Acreman, and another man he identified from a picture as a former janitor, James D Robinson, drag the girl into the bathroom. Mr Acreman even gave two video-taped statements identifying Mr Robinson as the assailant. The other two janitors did not corroborate the statements and Mr Acreman soon recanted his own video-taped statements, so Attorney-General, Jim Mattox said the new investigations did not come up with conclusive evidence. In the meantime, the dissenting juror in Mr Clarence Brandley's first trial said he received ‘thousands’ of threatening telephone calls, many racially oriented. Questions further grew when the physical evidence in the case, including hairs and semen samples that Mr Brandley's supporters say could have exonerated him, later disappeared from the office of the court stenographer.

Mr Brandley has maintained his innocence not only of the murder but of any assaults on women, of which he later also became accused. Both sides agree that, because of the lost physical evidence and new questions that have surfaced, it would be very difficult to obtain a conviction if Mr Brandley were tried again. But Montgomery County District Attorney Peter Speers said he saw nothing to warrant a new trial. The Times wrote further, ‘The case has stirred bitter passions amid allegations that the arrest and conviction of Mr Brandley were tainted with racism.’^150.

A white fraternity and four minority groups at the New Jersey Insitute of Technology have reached agreement in settling a dispute and easing racial tension. The agreement came after two weeks of meetings following campus tensions after an all-white fraternity distributed a flier for a party, that minority groups experienced as racially offensive. The advertisement read ‘Howard Beach Goes to Trial’. It featured two illustrations, one depicting public concern over subway shootings and the other showing a

150. The New York Times, from a report by Peter Applebome

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clothed skeleton in an abandoned elevator. After distribution of the leaflet, some minority groups voiced objection, saying the handbill glorified racial violence against blacks. The fraternity issued letters of apology and changed the flier, which at that point had already been distributed at campus and at Montclair State College. Saul Fenster, the President of the Institute, after having received a barrage of protests, revoked the fraternity's charter. The settlement reached called for the fraternity, Iota Kappa Phi, to be on probation for two academic years, beginning immediately, and for its members to perform community service projects recommended by and in conjunction with the minority groups.^151.

151. The New York Times, from a report by the Associated Press