The State Supreme Court has upheld the execution sentence for Roderick Nunley, convicted of first-degree murder. His execution is set for Oct. 20, 2010. Nunley is accused of raping and killing a 15-year-old girl in Kansas City.
Hearing on death sentence of Scott McLaughlin
August 3, 2010 By
In a hearing aimed at negating Scott McLaughlin’s death sentence, family members and a DNA expert testified Monday that a relative of his might also be connected to the killing of his ex-girlfriend.
Lawyers for McLaughlin are presenting new evidence in a claim that he did not have effective legal representation when St. Louis County Circuit Judge Steven H. Goldman sentenced him to death.
McLaughlin, of Wright City, was convicted of abducting Beverly Guenther, 45, of Moscow Mills, from her workplace in Earth City and killing her in November 2003. In 2006, jurors found McLaughlin guilty of first-degree murder, rape and armed criminal action in the guilt phase of his trial but could not agree on punishment. Goldman ordered the capital sentence a month later.
Penalty phase retrial for Michael Tisius
July 13, 2010 By
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.
MO Supreme Court upholds death penalty in “sex tape” murder
June 29, 2010 By
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 »
High court won’t hear MO lethal injection case
June 29, 2010 By
A major move from the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, affecting the enforcement of the death penalty in Missouri. The court denied hearing the Clemons v. Crawford case. Attorney General Chris Koster explains the implications:
“The Missouri death penalty protocol has been tangled up in the federal courts on and off for more than two years now. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision should clear the final hurdles and legitimize the constitutionality of Missouri’s death penalty protocol and we can now go forward with these death penalty cases,” Koster said.
Executions in Missouri had been put on hold by the Eighth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals while the case was reviewed. That Court’s ruling led to the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The basic argument that was put forth in the Clemons v. Crawford case was that the three drug protocol caused paralysis but then one of the drugs that was injected into the defendant’s body would cause excruciating internal suffering prior to death. That case the federal courts decided was no proven, and the U.S. Supreme Court said that the Missouri three-drug protocol, the same standard that is used in most of the 50 state that have the death penalty, is constitutional,” Koster said.
He is wasting no time getting the process started again.
“We will now go back to the Missouri Supreme Court and in appropriate cases where all the federal appeals have been run, we will go ahead and ask the Missouri Supreme Court to set execution dates,” Koster said.
Koster says he’s already asked the Missouri Supreme Court to set an execution date for Joseph Franklin, a ‘neo-Nazi murderer’ who shot three people outside a St. Louis synagogue, killing one of them. Franklin also killed four other people in incidents in Utah and Wisconsin and bombed a synagogue in Tennessee.
Story by Ryan Famuliner, Missourinet.com [AUDIO :60]
