Ernest Johnson Missouri executes death row inmate despite urgent pleas from lawmakers and Pope Francis
Despite interventions from members of Congress and Pope Francis and a last-minute appeal to the US Supreme Court, Ernest Johnson, 61, was executed in Missouri on 5 October.
A public defender for Mr Johnson, who was convicted in the murders of three people nearly three decades ago, argued that the stateâs killing of a man with an intellectual disability is unconstitutional.
Republican Governor Mike Parson â" who championed Missouri as the âmost pro-life stateâ as he advanced anti-abortion legislation â" denied Mr Johnson clemency.
âThe state is prepared to deliver justice and carry out the lawful sentence Mr Johnson received in accordance with the Missouri Supreme Courtâs order,â Governor Parson announced.
On Tuesday, the nationâs high court denied Mr Johnsonâs appeal.
Mr Johnsonâs legal team argued to the Supreme Court that there exists âno tangible harmâ to delay his execution while the courts âconstitutionally consideredâ his disability, pointing to a critical 2002 Supreme Court ruling that the government could not execute people with an intellectual disability, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Attorney Jeremy Weis argued that multiple exams have proven Mr Johnsonâs intellectual disability and diagnosis with foetal alcohol syndrome. In 2008, Mr Johnson also suffered the loss of 20 per cent of his brain tissue due to removal of a benign tumour, according to Mr Weis.
Mr Johnson was killed by lethal injection at a state prison in Bonne Terre on 5 October. He died at 6.11pm.
In a final statement issued by the Department of Corrections and dated 4 October, Mr Johnson expressed remorse and thanked his attorney and those who prayed for him. The statement contains several incomplete sentences.
âThey made me feel love as if I was family to them,â he wrote. âFor all the people that has prayed for me I thank them from the bottom of my. I love the Lord with all my heart and soul.â
He was the first person to be executed in the state since May 2020, and he is the seventh person to be executed in the US in 2021.
Mr Johnson was sentenced to death in 1999 following the murders of three people during a robbery at Caseyâs General Store in Columbia in 1994.
His execution followed widespread calls among Missouriâs faith leaders, elected officials and advocates as well as US Reps Emanuel Cleaver and Cori Bush urging the governor to halt the execution, which the lawmakers called a âa grave act of injusticeâ.
âThe fact of the matter is that these death sentences are not about justice,â they wrote in a letter to the governor. âThey are about who has institutional power and who doesnât.â
Ms Bush also pointed to racial disparities among death row inmates and within a criminal justice system that finds that killers of white victims are seven times âmore likely to receive the death penalty than the killers of Black victimsâ.
âThe death penalty is a tool that perpetuates racialized violence,â she said. âIt needs to be abolished. Ernest Johnson must not be executed.â
In a letter to the governor from Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Vaticanâs ambassador to the US, Pope Francis urged him to grant Mr Johnson âsome appropriate form of clemencyâ.
âHis Holiness wishes to place before you the simple fact of Mr. Johnsonâs humanity and the sacredness of all human life,â Archbishop Pierre wrote.
In response to Mr Johnsonâs stay of execution request, Missouriâs Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Monday said that the murders for which Mr Johnson was convicted âplainly reflect the offenderâs ability to plan, strategize, calculate, and scheme effectivelyâ.
Writing in The Kansas City Star, former Governor Bob Holden, whose office saw the killings of 20 people on death row, said that âif our state is to be guided by the rule of law, we must temper our understandable anger with reason and compassion for the most vulnerable among us, including Ernest Johnsonâ.
Anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean said Mr Johnsonâs execution is âunconstitutional under all existing legal precedentsâ.
âHe has the mental capacity of a 9-year-old child and is missing [20 per cent] of his brain mass,â she said. âThe Supreme Courtâs failure to do anything to stop this is a moral failing of the highest order.â
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