Current Events > Missouri has executed Ernest Johnson for killing 3 during robbery in 1994

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https://www.kctv5.com/news/local_news/missouri-to-execute-ernest-johnson-after-us-supreme-court- denies-request/article_3bf6b91a-2627-11ec-a4cd-ebe5607e1a26.html

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) -- 6:15 P.M. UPDATE: Missouri executes Ernest Johnson for killing three people while robbing a convenience store in 1994.

The Missouri Department of Corrections has shared Johnson's last statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request that it stop the planned execution of Ernest Johnson, clearing the way for the Missouri man convicted of killing three convenience store workers during a closing-time robbery nearly 28 years ago to die by injection Tuesday evening.

Johnson, 61, was scheduled for execution at the state prison in Bonne Terre, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of St. Louis. It would be the seventh U.S. execution this year.

Johnson's attorney, Jeremy Weis, said executing Johnson would violate the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits executing intellectually disabled people. On Monday, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution, which the court denied early Tuesday evening.

This is not a close case Mr. Johnson is intellectually disabled, Weis' court filing stated.

The Missouri Supreme Court in August, and again on Friday, refused to step in despite Johnson's history of scoring extremely low on IQ tests, dating back to childhood. Weis said Johnson also was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and lost about one-fifth of his brain tissue when a benign tumor was removed in 2008.

Republican Gov. Michael Parson on Monday declined to grant clemency despite the urging of several people, including the pope. A representative for Pope Francis wrote in a letter to Parson last week that the pope wishes to place before you the simple fact of Mr. Johnsons humanity and the sacredness of all human life. Parson announced Monday he would not intervene.

It wasn't the first time a pope has sought to intervene in a Missouri execution. In 1999, during his visit to St. Louis, Pope John Paul II persuaded Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan to grant clemency to Darrell Mease, weeks before Mease was to be put to death for a triple killing. Carnahan, who died in 2000, was a Baptist, as is Parson.

In 2018, Pope Francis Francis changed church teaching to say capital punishment can never be sanctioned because it constitutes an attack on human dignity. Catholic leaders have been outspoken opponents of the death penalty in many states.

Racial justice activists and two Missouri congressional members Democratic U.S. Reps. Cori Bush of St. Louis and Emmanuel Cleaver of Kansas City have also spoke out in support of Johnson, who is Black. Bush planned to attend a prayer vigil near the prison on Tuesday.

Johnson's crime shook Columbia nearly 28 years ago.

Johnson was a frequent customer of a Casey's General Store. Court records show that on Feb. 12, 1994, he borrowed a .25-caliber pistol from his girlfriend's 18-year-old son, with plans to rob the store for money to buy drugs.

In a 2004 videotaped interview with a psychologist shown in court, Johnson said he was under the influence of cocaine as he waited for the last customer to leave the store at closing time. Three workers were in the store: Manager Mary Bratcher, 46, and employees Mabel Scruggs, 57, and Fred Jones, 58.

On the video, Johnson said he became angry when Bratcher, who claimed not to have a safe key, tried to flush it down the toilet. He shot the victims with the borrowed gun, then attacked them with a claw hammer. Bratcher also was stabbed in the hand with a screwdriver. Police found two victims in the store's bathroom, and the third in a cooler.

This was a hideous crime," said Kevin Crane, the Boone County prosecutor at the time. "It was traumatic, and it was intense.

Police officers found a bloody screwdriver, gloves, jeans and a brown jacket in a nearby field and questioned Johnson within hours of the killings. At Johnson's girlfriend's house, officers found a bag with $443, coin wrappers, partially burned checks and tennis shoes matching bloody shoeprints from inside the store.

Johnson had previously asked that his execution be carried out by firing squad. His lawyers argued that Missouris lethal injection drug, pentobarbital, could trigger seizures due to the loss of brain tissue from the 2008 surgery.

Missouri law does not authorize execution by firing squad.

Johnson was sentenced to death in his first trial and two other times. The second death sentence, in 2003, came after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally ill was unconstitutionally cruel. The Missouri Supreme Court tossed that second death sentence, and Johnson was sentenced a third time in 2006.

Of the six previous U.S. executions this year, three were in Texas and three involved federal prisoners.

The peak year for modern executions was 1999, when there were 98 across the U.S. That number has gradually declined and just 17 people were executed last year 10 involving federal prisoners, three in Texas and one each in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri, according to a database compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.

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All to sate the crazed bloodlust of Parson and his demented followers

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I'm not for the death penalty in any circumstance, but it's hard to sympathize when a triple murderer gets executed. And we actually know he did it, unlike some death penalty cases.
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If it was true he had the mental capacity of a child since like 08 because of that brain tumor removal, I don't think he shoulda been killed

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Abolish the death penalty.

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"He shot the victims with the borrowed gun, then attacked them with a claw hammer. Bratcher also was stabbed in the hand with a screwdriver."

Fair, next.

Smackems posted...

If it was true he had the mental capacity of a child since like 08 because of that brain tumor removal, I don't think he shoulda been killed

He was also a fetal alcohol baby. He was fucked from birth

You know it's crazy to me that even with the death penalty he still had to serve 28 years in prison. It's like a double sentence

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Whatever the excuses were he was a danger to society and murdered 3 people, thats supercedes whatever shitty cards he was dealt in life.

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I'm pro death penalty, but a man with the IQ of a child should not be executed or sent to prison. He should be placed in a sanitarium for his protection and the protection of others.

He was a danger to everyone around him. Fuck him

FortuneCookie posted...

I'm pro death penalty, but a man with the IQ of a child should not be executed or sent to prison. He should be placed in a sanitarium for his protection and the protection of others.

He had a brain tumour removed in 2008. They should have let him die of that.
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DirkDiggles posted...

FortuneCookie posted...

I'm pro death penalty, but a man with the IQ of a child should not be executed or sent to prison. He should be placed in a sanitarium for his protection and the protection of others.

He had a brain tumour removed in 2008. They should have let him die of that.

What the fuck is wrong with you people
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UnholyMudcrab posted...

What the fuck is wrong with you people

Just pretend he's anti-vax, then you can celebrate with glee as well

Missouri is the same state that refuses to release a man (that has also been in prison since 94) who is innocent by admission of the prosecution

I dont trust bastards like that with the death penalty

My bad, even longer actually. The same governor that pardoned that couple in St Louis that waved guns at protestors wont pardon this guy.
https://www.kcur.org/news/2021-06-03/missouri-governor-does-not-pardon-kevin-strickland-who-prosecutor-says-is-wrongfully-imprisoned

Spot the difference.

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What's even the purpose of execution if you have to pay for the guy to be in prison for 27 years?

shockthemonkey posted...

This shit is so fucking disgusting

Motherfuckers want blood, not justice

No cost is too high for the cult of bloodlust Mike Parson and the rest of the GOP lead

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fuck the 13th Amendment, those who support slavery and any system that exploits those with poor mental health.

and whatever intellectually dishonest swine that would dream of responding out of context.
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Good

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Parson's denial of clemency to own the pope.
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Abolish the death penalty America

Savages

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DirkDiggles posted...

He had a brain tumour removed in 2008. They should have let him die of that.

No, they shouldn't have.

Good.

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ThePhantomMedic posted...

He was a danger to everyone around him. Fuck him

How was he a danger while incarcerated? Did he attack any of the other inmates or guards?