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A gun pointed at his wife during an in the Central West End changed things in a hurry. Gone are the campaign images of automatic gunfire blowing up a forest as a metaphor for reforming Jefferson City.

In St. Louis, where Greitens was born, reared and still lives, gun violence is real. And it’s frightening.

Tuesday morning, a shaken but resolute governor-elect stood in the December chill with his wife, Sheena, and suggested a frame for justice that could define his early days as governor.

“As a husband, my first thought was for Sheena’s safety,� Greitens said of his state of mind upon learning that his wife was robbed outside Café Ventana, a popular coffee shop and restaurant near St. Louis University. “My second thought was for justice.�

How Greitens, a Republican, defines justice remains an open question. He didn’t take questions from reporters Tuesday, but he indicated that his view on making St. Louis neighborhoods safer balances old-fashioned law and order with mercy and understanding.

“Faith teaches us that we must forgive. And that’s what Sheena and I plan to do,� Greitens said, his voice strained by emotion. “I plan to sit down with their mothers and their families to discuss what we can do together to make sure that every family and every community in the state of Missouri knows that they can go home at night and look at their kids and know that they are safe.�

Thirty-four years ago, just a couple of blocks north from where Greitens stood, another .

Boards and metal pipes were the weapons of choice then, but the end result was the death of a white son of a popular local pastor, who had wandered away drunk after a night of celebrating his 21st birthday.

Eric Clemmons, who is black (as Sheena Greitens’ assailants were), was 21 when he was convicted by an all-white jury in 1983 of the murder of Todd Weems. He was given the ultimate law-and-order sentence, life in prison with no parole until he served at least 50 years.

Four Missouri governors ago a federal judge suggested that Clemmons deserved the sort of mercy that is at the heart of executive clemency, a power that will be in Greitens’ hands when he is sworn in as governor on Jan. 9.

It was July 12, 1999, and U.S. Circuit Court Judge Myron Bright of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals was agreeing with his colleagues that Clemmons didn’t have federal grounds to have his murder conviction overturned.

That Clemmons swung a metal pipe at Weems during a street fight is not in dispute.

But almost everything else about the case is, including whether Clemmons was defending himself at the time, which should have provoked a lesser charge, and a far shorter sentence.

This is at the crux of an opinion Bright wrote in 1999.

“This is an unusual case,� Bright wrote. “The jury convicted Clemmons of capital murder. Yet, as I have observed, the evidence indicates that Clemmons acted with some justification for his conduct, and evidence which surfaced in a different trial casts grave doubt on whether Clemmons struck the blows that killed the victim. … By this concurring opinion, I urge Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan to review this case and consider reducing the existing life sentence. I note that Clemmons has already served seventeen years in prison, seven more than the minimum for second-degree murder and seven more than the maximum for manslaughter.�

Carnahan never commuted the sentence of Clemmons. Neither did Gov. Bob Holden. Nor did Gov. Matt Blunt. Nor, so far, has Gov. Jay Nixon.

Clemmons is hoping that on his way out, Nixon, a Democrat, will set him free.

“I hope I have finally dotted the ‘i’s’ and crossed the ‘t’s’ by having the appropriate people bring my nightmare to the attention of the governor,� Clemmons wrote me recently from the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston.

With Nixon’s days as governor winding down, a lot of folks in prison — and their advocates on the outside — are banking on the fact that after two terms and with his political career likely over, Nixon will look their way, shortening sentences that were too long, or freeing those who have rehabilitated themselves, or simply righting past wrongs.

Clemmons, who is 55, has been locked up since Aug. 16, 1982.

“I don’t know if Nixon will free me,� Clemmons wrote, “but I sure hope he does. Under the current conditions I live under, I don’t know if I can endure another four-year wait.�

If Clemmons is still in prison come Jan. 9, his plea for clemency will eventually end up on the desk of a governor who lives down the street from where the crime occurred, who understands intimately what violence against families looks like, who speaks of law and order and faith and forgiveness as though they are all part of the same system of justice.

The last leg of that system ends on the governor’s desk, where one man can sift through hundreds of petitions for clemency, and right the wrongs of a justice system that sometimes isn’t colorblind, that sometimes metes out punishment far too severe for the crime, that sometimes treats those from poverty differently than those with means.

It is at this final step, where mercy balances the rush to punish long after the tense emotions of a murder trial have simmered down.

In these cold December days, as one governor prepares to leave office and another begins his term, Eric Clemmons is begging for mercy. He hopes for forgiveness. He yearns for justice.