Name/DOC #

Roy Roberts

Address

Moberly Training Center for Men

Date of Birth

Race

White

Date of Crime

July 3, 1983

Age Time of Crime

Date Sentenced

Victims

Thomas Glen Jackson

Race of Victims

White

Relationship to Defendant

Prisoner/guard

Facts Alleged by State

Holding prison guard while he was stabbed to death

County of Trial

Trial Judge

Trial Attorney

Tom Marshall

Prosecutors

Tim Finnical

Trial By

Jury

Race of Jurors

Convicted of

Capital murder

Confession

No

Accomplice Testimony

· Rodney Carr, stabber, got life

· Robert Driscoll-recently retried and got death penalty

Eyewitness Testimony

· 3 guards and 1 prisoner: all failed initially to identify Roberts, a 300+ pound man

· Guard Halley claimed in trial testimony that he just forgot to mention him

Forensic Testimony

· Blood on other inmates’ clothes, not known if tested;

· Nothing on Roberts's clothes (they were not saved, tested, or offered as evidence)

Jailhouse Snitch

No

Defendant Testimony

Principal Exculpatory Evidence

· No bloody clothes.

· No physical evidence tying him to crime.

· One guard testified that he fought with Roberts elsewhere during riot.

· Roberts took polygraph test Feb. 19, 1999 - results showed "no deception" on direct questions about murder

Sentencing Authority

Jury

Statutory Aggravating Factor

Previous arrest for robbery of restaurant; did 2 years before that

Non-Statutory Aggravating Factor

Mitigating Factors

Evidence of Mental Illness Retardation and or Neurological Damage

No

Criminal History

· Crime for which he was in prison: robbing a restaurant

· Carl Harris confessed to that crime in February, 1999 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch-February 21, 1999, Bill McClellan, reporter)

Appellate History

· Direct appeal denied State v. Roberts, 709 S.W. 2d 857 (Mo.1986).

· His writ of certiorari was denied in Roberts v. Missouri, 479 U.S. 946 (1986).

· Again in 1989 his writ of certiorari was denied by the court en banc, 494 U.S. 1039 (1990).

· The U.S. Supreme Ct. denied his final petition for certiorari on Jan. 11, 1999. Roberts v. Bowersox, 119 S. Ct. 808 (1999).

· The U.S. Supreme Ct. denied his final petition and appeal March 9, 1999, hours before the execution.

· Roberts v. Bowersox, 119 S. Ct. 1160 (1999)

Ineffective Assistance?

Lawyer failed to cross examine 3 of the 4 eyewitnesses about discrepancies in testimony

Police Misconduct?

Prosecutorial Misconduct?

Appellate Counsel

Bruce Livingston