Adrian Peeler, 48, convicted in one of Connecticut’s most notorious witness killings, received clemency from former President Joe Biden, igniting fierce criticism from officials across party lines and reopening wounds in the Bridgeport community.
“A level of outrage, this is a terrible, terrible miscarriage of justice,” Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim said in a morning interview on WICC’s Melissa in the Morning.
The case that shocked Connecticut in 1999 involved the killings of Karen Clarke and her son, Leroy “BJ” Brown, who were shot execution-style in their Bridgeport home on January 7, 1999. The eight-year-old boy had witnessed Russell Peeler shoot Clarke’s boyfriend, Rudolph Snead Jr., in a barbershop, and both mother and son were scheduled to testify against Peeler’s brother, Russell Peeler Jr., before they were killed.
“Peeler, whoever did this to my grandchild and my daughter, there won’t be no lawyers to testify, there will be no one to vindicate them, they will have to vindicate themselves,” Pearl Clarke, the victims’ mother and grandmother, said at a memorial back in 1999.
Russell Peeler Jr. was initially sentenced to death for ordering the murders. His sentence was later commuted to life in prison without the possibility of release after Connecticut abolished capital punishment in 2012. The case became a focal point in Connecticut’s death penalty debate.
Adrian Peeler completed his 25-year state sentence for conspiracy to commit murder in 2021. He was serving additional time at a federal prison in West Virginia for cocaine trafficking charges, which included operating a large-scale drug operation in Bridgeport’s P.T. Barnum housing project. His scheduled release date was 2033 when Biden granted the clemency.
State Rep. Vincent Candelora, Republican Minority Leader, called Biden’s action “a disgusting miscarriage of justice” that “dismisses the pain of the victims’ families and erodes public trust in the principles of justice.”
Criminal Defense Attorney James Bergen from the law firm of Shipman and Goodwin voiced his confusion about the clemency decision, noting that the focus appeared solely on the federal case. He suggested that the reasoning may have been that the individual had already served significant time for drug-related offenses and that this was considered sufficient. However, Bergen emphasized that this case was markedly different and suggested that insufficient attention had been given to reviewing the complete history of the case.
The murders led to landmark changes in Connecticut law, including the creation of the LeRoy Brown, Jr. and Karen Clarke Witness Protection Program, which established new protocols for protecting witnesses in criminal cases. The state allocated significant funding to ensure witness safety and created a dedicated witness protection unit within the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office.
The clemency was part of Biden’s broader action to commute sentences for nearly 2,500 federal inmates described as “non-violent.” The list included two Virginia men, Ferrone Claiborne and Terence Richardson, who were convicted in connection with the 1998 death of a police officer despite being acquitted of murder charges in state court.
Bridgeport’s state’s attorney, Joseph Corradino, confirmed that Peeler had completed his maximum sentence in state court before the federal clemency was granted. The clemency order states that Peeler’s federal sentence will expire on February 17, 2025.
Mayor Ganim, who held the same position as the Mayor of Bridgeport during the time of the murders, described the clemency decision as a profound injustice that has sent another shockwave through the community. He highlighted the devastating impact of the 1999 murders of an eight-year-old boy and his mother, which ultimately led to the creation of Connecticut’s witness protection program.
Similarly, State Senator Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s Attorney General and directly involved in prosecuting parts of the case, has called for greater transparency and notification protocols for presidential clemency decisions. Blumenthal criticized the process, suggesting that the decision was made without thoroughly reviewing the case’s entire background.