ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

In a city where gun crimes are an everyday occurrence, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Steven Ohmer out of the 67-year-old. Last November, an all-white jury had taken about an hour to decide the 6-foot-2-inch, 300-pound African-American man’s fate on four charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

Ohmer was not in a merciful mood. This is a city where the police chief, Sam Dotson, for being weak on gun crimes. Never mind that Green hadn’t stolen the guns, or used them, or sold them, or committed any other crimes at all. He was going down. Despite a recommendation from the circuit attorney that Green, who is diabetic, be given a sentence of seven years, Ohmer handed down the maximum sentence available by law.

Green would spend the rest of his life behind bars. Sixty years in all.

“I never thought I’d see St. Louis again, except on TV,� Green told me Wednesday. He wasn’t behind bars. He’s not on probation or wearing an ankle bracelet. We sat at a Hardee’s on South Broadway sipping coffee while he told me his story.

What happened?

Ohmer went from 60 to zero in four months. On June 1, the judge reversed his previous sentence and set Green free. No more jail time. No more probation. No fees. “Defendant … is discharged from custody,� Ohmer wrote.

Green was a free man.

“Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,� Green says. “It’s been a long, long rough road.�

The document trail

Two documents tell the story of how Green went from poster child of what is causing violence in St. Louis to an example of everything that is wrong with how the criminal justice system treats African-Americans. After the trial, public defender Julie Fogelberg filed a motion seeking to set aside the verdict or order a new trial based on multiple violations of Green’s constitutional rights during the trial, most related to decisions made by Ohmer.

They included:

• Allowing the state to strike African-Americans from the jury pool because they had criminal convictions on their record.

• Not allowing the jury to know that Green’s one-time co-defendant, Louis Bond (his nephew), signed an affidavit saying that all eight guns (most of them hunting rifles) found in the house belonged to him. Bond died before the trial, but he had previously signed the affidavit while he was represented by an attorney.

• Not allowing the defense to strike Mayor Francis Slay from the jury pool because as head of the police department he would have a conflict of interest. (Slay did not end up on the jury).

• Not allowing testimony or cross-examination that would show Green wasn’t charged with any of the offenses he was actually arrested on when police searched his home on June 4, 2014.

But perhaps the key allegation made by Fogelberg — in a motion for Ohmer to reconsider his sentence — is that the judge dropped the hammer on Green because he was mad that the 67-year-old dared to exercise his right to trial.

“The trial court cannot use the sentencing process to punish a defendant by increasing his sentence because he decided to go to trial,� Fogelberg wrote. “… the court made it clear after the jury found Mr. Green guilty of all four charges that going to trial was a mistake, and Mr. Green’s sentence would reflect the court’s opinion about the mistake of proceeding to trial.�

Ohmer, in an interview, said race had nothing to do with Green’s conviction or sentence. He denies he punished Green because he chose to go to trial.

“I would never do that,� he said.

So why the massive sentence, when the average sentence for similar crimes is 4.3 years?

“Mainly because of his attitude,� he told me. “He had a terrible attitude. His attitude was very defiant. There was no reason to have any sympathy for him.�

So what changed between February and June?

Fogelberg’s arguments that the arrest, nearly 12-month incarceration and flawed trial violated Green’s rights to due process, fair and impartial sentencing, and equal protection under the law carried the day. After filing her motions and having discussions with the judge, Ohmer said the public defender convinced him “there were some legal issues. … So I tried to do the fair thing.�

On the same day Ohmer released Green, the defendant waived his right to appeal his case or seek any post-conviction relief.

Freedom came with a cost, though. Green lost his house, his cars, all his tools from his contracting business. He spent six months in jail on a $30,000 cash-only bail because he was too poor to bail out. Then he spent an additional three months in the city workhouse awaiting sentencing, and four months in the state penitentiary in Bonne Terre after Ohmer sent him away.

“I was sitting at the lunch table every day with murderers and rapists,� said Green, whose only felony conviction was in 2005 for drug possession. “My life is in shambles. I ain’t never seen a judge act like that. I was like a lamb being led to the slaughterhouse.�

The arrest

Green’s problems started on June 4, 2014. Police showed up at the house he shared with Bond because they had complaints about “suspicious activity,� according to the police report. Green says he was planning to open a convenience store, and to prepare he was buying up retail racks and food, like chips and candy. Indeed, his house was packed with such goods when police arrived.

An orphan who never finished elementary school, the Louisiana native doesn’t read or write very well. Police didn’t know he was a felon at the time, so they didn’t charge him with anything related to the guns but asked him to sign a couple of forms about his possessions. Green says he had no idea he was signing a form that says he owned four of the guns.

He was arrested for operating a business without a license, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, and tampering with utilities.

But a lab report came back empty. And so Green was never charged with any of those offenses. For six months he was in jail, not because he was a danger to society, but because he was poor.

Green missed Ferguson and its aftermath because he was behind bars living out everything would later find wrong with the criminal justice system in our region.

Eventually, a judge lowered Green’s bail and he paid $500 for his temporary freedom.

Then came the trial.

Over two days last November, Green’s fate was in the hands of a criminal justice system that still sees no problem with a black man facing an all-white jury in a city that is 47 percent African-American.

“Some real bad stuff went on in that courtroom,� Green says.

One of the more egregious violations, according to Fogelberg’s motions, was that Ohmer allowed Green to be considered a “prior and persistent offender� because of a probation violation in his drug case.

In 2010, five years after he was charged with possession, Green was brought before a judge in Cape Girardeau because he hadn’t yet paid off $1,600 in court costs. At the time, as he is now, Green was mostly living on Social Security and disability income.

After Green explained why he hadn’t been able to pay the costs, Judge William Syler got indignant, according to the transcripts.

“You want me just to go ahead and revoke you and send you to prison?� Syler asked.

Part of Green’s difficulty, he told Syler, was that the traffic courts in and around St. Louis were nickel-and-diming him to death.

“Every time I go to court, they say all the cases is taken care of,� he said. “Then when I go back to court, they say hold on, we’ve got five more cases and everything.�

He told Syler he could barely afford his rent.

“I can take care of the rent problem,� Syler said.

And he did. He revoked Green’s probation and sentenced him to 60 days in jail because he couldn’t afford justice. He didn’t tell him that the revocation would make him a felon.

Syler couldn’t know that another angry judge six years later would compound the problem.

The future

Today, Green is free but angry. He’s got paperwork to prove the system did him wrong, but not much else to go with it. He’s living with his brother and his family in south St. Louis. He’s trying to improve his reading skills, something a preacher helped him with while he was avoiding fights with the younger inmates in Bonne Terre.

He wants to know who is going to help him get his life back.

“I lost everything,� Green said. “And I never even should have even been arrested.�