The family of homicide victim John Christmas blasted the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office in court this morning for giving a “sweetheart deal” of seven years in prison to the man who killed him.
It’s not unusual for the families of deceased to be incensed at these plea hearings, taking prosecutors to task and feeling that whatever deal was worked out between prosecutors and defense attorneys is not equal to their enduring loss. However, what was unusual about today’s hearing was that the family member blasting the Circuit Attorney’s Office was a prominent defense attorney typically in court trying to get his clients a lighter sentence. Also unusual was that he had with him several attorneys and even two municipal judges essentially co-signing his criticisms.
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“What kind of message are you sending with this?” attorney Jerryl Christmas asked Circuit Court Judge Katherine Fowler, who had to decide whether to accept a deal that would give Trevell Warren a seven-year sentence for killing Jerryl’s brother, John. Over the course of an emotional hour-long hearing, Jerryl answered his own question, saying in effect: As long as you’re killing people in North City, you’ll get a light sentence. Just don’t kill anyone south of Delmar.
Last June, John Christmas was making a purchase at the Crown Mart on North Kingshighway when he got into an argument with a store worker. Warren then inserted himself into the scene, approaching Christmas and, according to police, attempting to steal his firearm. A shouting match spilled out to the front of the store. When both men were on the ground, Warren shot Christmas with his own gun, killing him.
At the time, Warren was already a convicted felon prohibited from being in possession of a weapon. Three months prior to his fatal interaction with John Christmas, Warren was charged with being in possession of two weapons. The judge released him on bond, and the charges were pending when he encountered Christmas at the convenience store.
“He was on bond [in the circuit court] when he went and killed my brother,” Jerryl Christmas told Fowler.
Christmas, who’d been an assistant circuit attorney before going into the criminal defense, said that he believed the murder case was “a layup” that he’d be comfortable taking to trial. The assistant circuit attorney himself confirmed there was eyewitness testimony and video surveillance. Christmas stressed several times that he wasn’t a proponent for super-long sentences, but felt that seven years was too light given that Warren was likely to serve only half or two-thirds of it.
The plea agreement was struck between the office of Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore and Warren’s public defender, Anthony McLaughlin. Warren was originally charged with second-degree murder, robbery, two counts of armed criminal action, and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. As part of the deal, those charges were amended to one count of involuntary manslaughter and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. One of the factors that led to the deal was that it was unclear if Warren was trying to steal John Christmas’ gun or if he was trying to disarm him.
Jerryl Christmas says it doesn’t matter. Warren wasn’t working security. He wasn’t law enforcement. Why did he insert himself into the situation? “He was charged correctly with murder in the second degree,” Christmas said.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said in a statement that he extended his deep condolences to the Christmas family. “Based on conversations with Mr. Christmas’s family, we understand that they would have liked to have seen Mr. Warren receive a longer sentence,” he said. “Resolving cases such as this with plea agreements is a difficult but necessary part of our work. The plea agreement reached in this case was based on information gathered during the ongoing investigation and after careful review by the most senior members of our trial staff. Based on the facts and law, the plea agreement was an appropriate resolution of this case.”
Christmas said that, to his mind, the way his brother’s case was handled is indicative of how the prosecutor’s office handles cases in which a Black person is killed, which he says is different than when it’s a white victim. What perhaps upset him most was that he didn’t even know plea negotiations were happening, and he was only given a very short notice about the hearing this morning. “This is the way they’ve been treating Black families,” he said. “Shoving something down their throat.”
Unusually, multiple other attorneys and even two municipal judges spoke in court in support of Christmas’ argument.
“If Kim Gardner had tried to plea out a murder case without informing the victim’s family, everyone would have lost their shit,” said one criminal defense attorney, who asked for anonymity since he must deal with the Circuit Attorney’s Office. “And then to agree to a seven-year sentence on a murder? It would have been front page news—especially, a case where there is video of the murder.”
“Dig deep,” Felicia Ezell-Gillespie, a municipal judge in St. Louis County, told Fowler. “You don’t have to accept their arguments. Is this the message we want to send?”
Attorney Donnell Smith, who is also a municipal judge in Dellwood, pointed out in his brief remarks that a seven-year sentence is within the range of punishment for the weapons charges Warren picked up three months before the killing—in other words, time that Warren would have been facing whether or not he killed a man.
Fowler’s options were limited. She could either accept the plea or ask the prosecutors and defense to reconsider. She couldn’t unilaterally raise or lower the punishment Warren would be getting. She said she was sympathetic to Christmas and his family, but ultimately said the “state has a different view of this evidence” and that even if she asked them to reconsider, she didn’t think they’d come back with any other recommendation. She accepted the seven-year deal.
John Christmas, who was 51 when he was killed, was a father of two who graduated University City High School and Alabama A&M University. “He was always the life of the party,” his brother said. “Like any siblings we’d go back and forth, but we had an endearing love.”
At the end of the hearing, Christmas turned directly to Warren: “You’re getting a deal. A hell of a deal. A gift. I hope you quit being a terror to our community.”
A previous version of this story misstated the university from which John Christmas graduated.
