Capital Punishment in Missouri
The slaying of two Randolph County jailers a decade ago was again detailed this morning in Boone County Circuit Court, during a penalty phase retrial for convicted murderer Michael Tisius.
The defendant, 29, was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him on two counts of first-degree murder in 2001 in Boone County Circuit Court. The retrial concerns only Tisius’ sentence, not the conviction.
The state Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of a man involved in one of the Kansas City area’s most sensational recent murder cases.
Richard Davis was convicted of murdering a woman he and his girlfriend, Dena Riley, had sexually abused and killed. Jurors saw a videotape that showed Davis and Riley suffocating Independence resident Marsha Spicer.
All seven judges agree the trial court made none of the mistakes Davis claims it made. The court split on two other points in the case but upheld the trial court’s decision on each issue.
Riley, the girlfriend, is in prison for life without parole.
Story by Bob Priddy, Missourinet
Briefs, summaries of the written arguments and link to the audio of the oral arguments »
“To avoid the possibility of another death sentence at his third trial this summer, Gary W. Black this week sought and obtained a plea bargain that will keep him locked up for the rest of his life for the 1998 stabbing death of Jason Johnson.
Black, 54, entered an Alford plea Wednesday in Jasper County Circuit Court to the first-degree murder charge he has been facing for 12 years.
Black was twice convicted of the charge and twice sentenced to die by Jasper County juries. Both convictions were overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court, and a third capital-murder trial was set to begin in late July, with selection of jurors from Cass County.”
The discovery of long-hidden evidence in a 19-year old murder case fuels hopes of death penalty opponents that the state will declare a moratorium on executions for two years. Reginald Clemons, Marlin Gray, and two others were convicted in 1993 of the rapes and murders of two St. Louis sisters who were thrown off a St. Louis bridge into the Mississippi River. Gray was executed five years ago. Clemons would have been executed last June but a stay was issued and a special judge is reviewing the case.
A few days ago, three lab reports and some physical evidence was discovered in the St. Louis police crime lab and says the evidence had been disclosed to the defense.
Executive Director Donnie Morehouse of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty says the discovery nine months after Clemons was supposed to die carries a message. “What has been going on and why has that evidence been sitting there and why has it not come forward and why it’s just now at this time come forward. I think those are questions legislators should be asking,” he says.
The Attorney General wants a quick court ruling on how this information should be processed. Morehouse’s group and other death penalty organizations had planned before the evidence was found to have a rally at the Capitol next week. Morehouse says the revelations about the evidence will give more weight to the push for a moratorium. [Story by Missourinet's Bob Priddy]
Some evidence has been found that was never used in a 1993 St. Louis murder trial in which Reginald Clemons was sentenced to death. The state Attorney General’s office has notified a special judge reviewing the case that three laboratory reports and a rape-kit have been found in the St. Louis Police Department’s Crime Lab. The Attorney General has asked for a quick hearing to determine the appropriate process for testing the biological evidence and getting the information into the process.
Clemons’ prosecutor says he learned of the evidence only recently. Clemons’ lawyers were apparently not told about it.
Clemons says he did not take part in the rape and murder of two St. Louis sisters thrown off a bridge into the Missouri River in 19-91. Clemons was to have been executed last June but the execution was stayed. One of the other three men implicated in the case, Marlin Gray, was executed five years ago. [Missourinet]
A date has been set for the third capital murder trial of Gary Black, who twice has been sentenced to death for stabbing a man to death in Joplin. By the time the trial starts August 2nd, almsot 12 years have elapsed since the death of Jason Johnson.
Black is charged with stabbing Johnson to death as Johnson sat in his pickup truck at a Joplin stoplight. Testimony at the two earlier trials indicated Johnson had brushed against Black’s girlfriend at a convenience store but had apologized.
Black’s previous convictions have been reversed on appeals. More on this story from the Joplin Globe.
The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled one convicted killer should die but another should live.
Condemned inmate Carmen Deck had claimed numerous mistakes were made during the sentencing phase of his trial for the murders of a couple from rural DeSoto, James and Zelma Long, in 19-96.. The court has unanimously refused to change his sentence from death to life without parole. The court says the judge did not abuse his discretion in handling of some parts of the trial and that Deck has failed to prove his punishment is unjust when compared to other murder cases. Deck still has other appeals. No execution date has been set.
In the second case, the court has blocked the execution of inmate Andrew Lyons, who killed three people in Cape Girardeau in 1992. The court, again in a unanimous opinion, says the evidence from a special master of the court supports claims that Lyons is mentally retarded, with an IQ of 61 to 70 and that his condition was documented before he achieved adulthood.
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that mentally retarded people cannot be executed if their condition was diagnosed while still a minor.
Lyons used a shotgun to kill his estranged girlfriend, their 11-month old son, and the girlfriend’s mother. The court has not reduced his sentence. It has only issued a writ forbidding the Corrections Department from executing him. [Bob Priddy, The Missourinet]
The death sentence of convicted killer Travis E. Glass has been commuted to life in prison without parole. The decision avoids a jury trial over punishment that was to have started Monday in Callaway County. The Palmyra man was 21 when authorities said he confessed to strangling 13-year-old Steffini Wilkins of Hannibal on May 25, 2001. On Friday, Callaway County Judge Kevin M. Crane finalized the judgment of life in prison without probation or parole. Full story at Hannibal.net
From story by Tony Rizzo, BostonHerald.com:
“After a failed execution in September, the state of Ohio may have revolutionized capital punishment in America when it put a different inmate to death last month.
It executed Kenneth Biros on Dec. 8 with a single drug, marking the first time in the United States that a lethal injection was not done with a three-drug “cocktail” that has been the subject of numerous legal challenges in recent years. Death penalty experts think it’s highly likely that other states will follow Ohio’s lead.
Critics of the three-drug method repeatedly have suggested using just one strong sedative. That way, executioners would avoid the possibility of a condemned person suffering excruciating pain during the three-drug process, which is used in most capital punishment states and by the federal government.”
We’re making some changes to the website and a lot of our content will be unavailable for the next few days. We hope to have everything back in order by the weekend but until then… you can find everything here. Thanks for your patience.
UPDATE: Yeah, stick with the link above for now. There’s been more link rot than I realized. A lot of our audio links (oral arguments before Missouri Supreme Court) aren’t working. Same for links to SC opinions. This will be a work in progress. Still hope to have the core content back up by Monday.
UPDATE: We’re finding most (all?) of our links to the MO Supreme Court documents are broken. Not sure if we’ll go back and try to re-create all of those. For now, just use the link in the sidebar to the court’s search page. Pretty fast.
Oh, and a word about comments. We long ago abandoned the idea of moderating comments. This is site is intended to be an archive and takes no position of capital punishment. Just ignore the comments link until we can remove it from this theme.