ST. LOUIS • Circuit Judge Rex Burlison on Friday delayed until Jan. 8 the trial date for Reginald Clemons.
The extra time is needed to resolve a defense claim of impropriety by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office for obtaining and listening to Clemons’ jailhouse phone calls.
Clemons’ public defenders have said the Attorney General’s office, without notifying them, obtained via subpoena jailhouse visitor logs and recordings of hundreds of Clemons’ phone calls made from the St. Louis city jail since March 2016 .
Clemons’ lawyers say the recordings include at least three phone calls to his lawyers and may have revealed the names of defense expert witnesses to testify at trial.
Assistant Attorney General Christine Krug said in a response filed with the court that the state didn’t listen to any calls to public defenders or “purposefully obtain attorney-client privileged materials.” She also said Clemons waived attorney-client privilege when he called his lawyers knowing that the jail records phone calls.
Burlison may appoint a special master to review the conflict over the recordings. He has not decided whether to disqualify the Attorney General’s office from the case.
Clemons’ trial on two murder charges had been set for August.His lawyers have been negotiating a plea agreement with prosecutors but no deal has been made. The defense asked Burlison last week for a later trial date, arguing that prosecutors failed to provide them with new DNA testing and analysis the state intends to present as evidence.
Sisters Julie Kerry, 20, and Robin Kerry, 19, were killed on the closed Chain of Rocks Bridge in April 1991. Authorities have said Clemons was among four men who encountered the Kerry sisters and their cousin on the bridge, attacked them and forced them to jump into the Mississippi River. The women died; their cousin lived.
Clemons was convicted in 1993, but the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2015 and sent the case back to circuit court.
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