This is #2 of 7 in a series of Tuesday releases on Philip Workman that will cover core, unresolved issues in the unjust pursuit of his execution.
Executing InJustice
Did Shelby County Officials Promote and facilitate Perjury at Workman trial?
Harold Davis was the one and only person who ever testified that he saw Philip Workman shoot Lt. Ronnie Oliver in the parking lot of the Wendy's restaurant in 1982. Last week's review demonstrated without doubt that Davis perjured himself and in fact did not witness Oliver's tragic shooting.
But did Shelby County law enforcement officials further facilitate the subornation of perjury in their own testimony in an effort to convict Workman of a capital crime and thus execute him? To answer that question this week's focus falls upon the testimony of three Memphis police officers.
Evidence not presented at Workman's 1982 trial demonstrates that Officers Aubrey Stoddard and Steven Parker as well as former Memphis Police Officer Clyde Keenan all appeared to mislead the court and the jury in an effort to secure a death sentence against Philip Workman.
Stoddard and Parker testified that they never fired their guns at the scene.
However the original 8/5/81 Memphis Police Department Offense Report states that, "...there was an exchange of gunfire between the officers and the suspect. Both officers Lt. Oliver and Patrolman Stoddard were shot on the scene. The suspect then fled further northbound across the parking lot where Officer Parker came running up to assist the other officers in which the suspect did turn and exchange gunfire between Officer Parker and himself."
Steve Craig, a Memphis resident and friend of Officer Stoddard swears that, "Immediately after Memphis Policemen Oliver and Stoddard were shot, Memphis Policeman Parker appeared on the Wendy's north parking lot carrying a shotgun. Parker fired the shotgun at a man I have been informed was Philip Workman as that man ran north across the Holiday Auto Parts parking lot."
On 8/7/81 the Memphis Commercial Appeal wrote that, "Police said Parker exchanged shots with the robber."
Keenan's inconsistencies and untruthful testimony are however the most damning for County officials.
Clyde Keenan testified he was the Commanding Officer of the Memphis Police Department "Security Squad Shoot Team," and that he was one of the first, if not the first, officer to respond to the call that shots had been fired and an officer was down. Keenan claimed that he arrived at the scene less than 90 seconds after the call went out.
Keenan testified that, "After Oliver was put into an ambulance [he] immediately initiated a check of the guns belonging to Parker and Stoddard."
But police documents and the testimony of Officer Parker demonstrate beyond any doubt that Keenan's testimony about being first on the scene and initiating an immediate check of weapons was false.
Radio dispatch cards show that the "shots fired" call went out at 10:35 p.m. and Keenan arrived on the scene at 10:41 p.m. -- 4x later than he testified to.
To prove he responded in the 90 seconds he claimed Keenan testified that, "[T]here's nobody else at the time as we're pulling up except Parker, Stoddard, and Oliver..."
Yet an August 6, 1981 memo written by Patrolman W. D. Dankins establishes that Keenan did not arrive at the scene until after Oliver had been put in an ambulance.
Keenan testified that he was with Sergeant Rick Wilson when, "we heard the call for help go out that there was an officer down. We responded to it immediately at that point. We were probably on the scene between a minute and a minute and a half after the time that we heard the officer was down."
But Sgt. R. K. Wilson writes in an August 6, 1981 Supplemental Offense Report that, "The writer [Wilson] proceeded to the scene and on arriving was met by Lt. C. Keenan, Sgt. G. Ball, Sgt. D.R. Hollie of the Shoot Team and numerous uniformed officers."
Then, apparently to add credence to his claim that he was immediately on the scene, Keenan testified that, "There was a uniformed supervisor pulled directly just as I was pulling up, Lieutenant Junior Hayes."
But the August 20, 1981 Arrest Report refutes Keenan's testimony yet again: "Sgt. Holly and Lt. W. C. Keenan roped off the scene area at the start of the investigation the scene had been secured up to that point by Lt. J. R. Hayes, car 106, prior to Lt. Keenan and Holly's arrival."
Again to bolster his claim that he was immediately on the scene (in less than 90 seconds) Keenan described a heartbreaking scene in which he, "knelt down beside [Oliver]...thinking...we had probably a sunken chest wound here; looking, trying to find if that was in front, a sunken chest wound...I couldn't find the wound. He's just covered with blood and there was nothing I could do. Stayed there with him for just a minute or two. It seemed like an eternity until the fire department ambulance got there to him. As soon as they got there we got out of the way."
One problem: like Harold Davis witnessing the shooting, it never happened.
The August 20, 1981 Arrest Report states that Patrolman Cobb stayed with Lieutenant Oliver until an ambulance arrived. The nail in Keenan's coffin stems from the Memo of Patrolman W. D. Dankins which states that Keenan arrived on the scene after Oliver had been put in the ambulance.
In another section of Keenan's touching but fictional account of the crime scene he claims that, "From looking at him [Oliver], kneeling down beside him, he was conscious. He was aware of the fact that he was badly injured. I tried to talk to him. He was just a little bit responsive, but was slowly drifting off."
But the August 6, 1981 statement of Officer Steven Parker says, "I looked over Lt. Oliver had just hit the ground and was bouncing back up and down. I ran over to Lt. Oliver, his eyes were rolled back in his head."
More than 19 years later at Workman's January 25, 2001 clemency hearing Parker again testified that, "It was obvious he was mortally wounded. He was bleeding out his mouth, his nose, his eyes were already rolled up in his head...[he] was dying, convulsing and moving around a little bit, but he was not conscious."
Finally, Keenan's claims that he instituted an immediate check of the officer's weapons are disputed by the evidence.
Keenan states that, "I sent one of my investigators, Gary Ball, after we had checked everything else, to the hospital. He went to the hospital, checked [Stoddard's] weapon at that time." His assertion is that, "...once [Stoddard] got to the hospital, both his weapon and the weapon for Lt. Oliver were secured."
However the Supplementary Offense Report of Gary Ball states that Keenan sent him to the hospital to interview Mr. Workman, not to check Stoddard's weapon. That report further relates that Officer Ball came upon Officer Stoddard's gun hours after he arrived at the hospital, not through a search for it, but only by happenstance.
And yet a 5th Execution Date has been set
It's clear that the perjury of Harold Davis played a damning role in convincing the jury to find Philip Workman guilty of first degree murder and sentence him to death.
It's abundantly clear that if one sorts through the transcripts and compares the testimonies of officers Stoddard, Parker and Keenan against police records, memos and reports one finds that obfuscation trumps all efforts at a just outcome in this case. An outcome that treats all parties fairly - Officer Oliver's family, Philip Workman's family as well as Tennessee state law and the Constitution of the United States.
Perjury and police misconduct should not and cannot be tolerated particularly when the state seeks to intentionally end a human life. This evidence has never been presented to a jury.
Yet that's where the state of Tennessee and we its citizens stand some 5 weeks from Philip Workman's 5th execution date.
That's not justice -- that's corruption.
Next week we'll look at the evidentiary hearing granted Philip Workman in 2001 and how the sitting judge in that hearing further undermined the system's efforts to see justice done to all parties in the tragic death of Lt. Ronald Oliver.