The Hi-Fi murders case drew almost 20 years of legal and human rights challenges. Both men sentenced to death, Dale Pierre and William Andrews, were Black. The victims and the trial jury were white. Civil rights groups argued the trial and sentences were shaped by racial bias.
The campaign against the death sentences
After the death sentences came down, the NAACP and Amnesty International campaigned to commute them. The NAACP argued the sentences should be revoked because of racial bias at the trial, pointing to the all-white jury and victims.
Amnesty International noted that the one Black member of the jury pool was removed by the prosecution during selection. Prosecutors said he was dismissed because he was a law enforcement officer who personally knew most people tied to the case.
The note
A petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleged that a handwritten note reading “hang the niggers” was found in the jury’s dining area during the trial. The jury had been sequestered and ate daily at a cafe in Bountiful, Utah, where a juror reportedly found the words written on a napkin. The judge refused a request for a mistrial and refused to let the defense question jurors about the note. The note itself was never preserved, and its fate is unknown.
Andrews and the question of who deserves death
William Andrews drew the most debate. He helped plan the robbery and forced Drano on the hostages, but he did not fire the shots that killed anyone. Pierre, who did, was executed in 1987. Andrews argued the system treated him unequally and accused it of racism. A representative of Pope John Paul II and 40 Utah clergy asked for clemency for Andrews. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not endorse the request.
The 1996 finding
Despite the appeals, both death sentences were upheld and carried out. Andrews was executed in 1992. In December 1996, four years after his death, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that the United States had violated its international obligations by denying William Andrews a trial free from racial discrimination. The finding had no legal force in U.S. courts, and by then both men had been executed.
The survivors saw the case differently. At Pierre’s 1987 clemency hearing, Orren Walker called him a sadist and said he deserved to die, describing how the crime destroyed his family.
“He was kind of prancing or walking in a manner that I got the impression he was kind of enjoying what he was doing.”
Orren Walker, at Dale Pierre’s 1987 clemency hearingRelated: the trial, the perpetrators, and sources and further reading.