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The United States Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the execution of people with intellectual disabilities was a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The last time Missouri carried out an execution was in May 2020, when Walter Barton was put to death by lethal injection for fatally stabbing an 81-year-old woman in 1991.
Using a hammer as a weapon, Mr Johnson killed three employees of a convenience store – Mary Bratcher, 46; Fred Jones, 58; and Mabel Scruggs, 57 – in Columbus, Missouri, in February 1994, as he robbed the store for money to buy drugs, court documents show. A jury in Boone County, Missouri, found him guilty in 2005 of three counts of first degree murder and sentenced him to death, according to the documents.
After several court challenges over the years centered on Mr Johnson’s tests and intellectual abilities, the state Supreme Court ruled in August that his recollections of the details of the crime showed he was capable of “planning, d ‘strategize and solve problems – unlike a finding of substantial sub-average intelligence.
Mr. Johnson was born in Steele, Missouri, in 1960 and raised in Charleston, Missouri, Ms. Bush and Mr. Cleaver wrote in their letter. His father was a sharecropper, they said, and he was raised primarily by his grandmother.
Due to his mother’s addiction to alcohol and drugs, Mr Johnson was born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Ms Bush and Mr Cleaver wrote. The Associated Press reported that up to 20% of Mr Johnson’s brain tissue was removed during an operation in 2008 to remove a brain tumor.
“Sir. The execution of Johnson would be a grave act of injustice,” wrote Mrs. Bush and Mr. Cleaver.
In an opinion piece published in the Kansas City Star on Sunday, Bob Holden, a former Democratic governor of Missouri, said he sent a letter to Mr Parson asking for Mr Johnson’s clemency. Mr Holden said he supported the death penalty, noting that 20 men were executed during his tenure as governor from 2001 to 2005.
“I also realize, however, that there are unique occasions where the people of our state are wisely served by the governor exercising the office’s clemency powers,” Mr. Holden wrote. “The scheduled October 5th performance of Ernest Johnson, I think, is one example. “
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