Missouri executes man who murdered three people in 1994
Protest against the death penalty before the Supreme Court on 17 of January of 2017, in Washington, DC.
Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP / Getty Images
Missouri executed Ernest Johnson Tuesday, despite claims his lawyer and opponents of the death penalty that he had an intellectual disability and that executing him violated the Constitution, according to NBC News.
Johnson, from 61 years, who was sentenced to the death penalty for the murder of three store employees of convenience nearly three decades ago, was executed by lethal injection at a state prison in Bonne Terre. He was pronounced dead at 6: 11 pm local time, said a spokeswoman for the state department of corrections.
Pope Francis, two members of the Congress and former Missouri Democratic Gov. Bob Holden were among those who spoke out against the execution.
On Monday, Governor Mike Parson , a Republican, denied clemency to Johnson and said the state would carry out the execution.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request for stay of execution.
NEW: The Supreme Court declines to stop the execution of Ernest Johnson, who is set to be executed this evening in Missouri. Johnson argued that he is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for the death penalty. Don’t justify indicate dissent. pic.twitter.com/FETUcDmBfv
In a presentation to the superior court on Tuesday, Johnson’s legal team reiterated that IQ tests had indicated that he had the intellectual capacity of a child and wrote that there would be “no tangible harm” if his execution were delayed while questioning whether lower courts had “constitutionally considered” his disability were further explored.
“This Court has said that states simply cannot execute the intellectually disabled,” wrote the attorneys for Johnson, referring to a Supreme Court ruling of 2002 .
Johnson’s execution was the first conducted by Missouri prison officials since May 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic halted death chamber operations in several states, to before Texas launched the practice this year.
Johnson was sentenced to death for murdering in February 1994 to Fred Jones, from 58 years old, Mary Bratcher (46) and Mabel Scruggs (57) during a robbery at the Columbia supermarket, in Missouri, where they worked and of which Johnson was a regular customer. Johnson shot them with a revolver and finished them off with a hammer and screwdriver.
When the authorities were alerted at dawn, they found two of the workers killed in one bathroom and the other in a freezer. During a later search at Johnson’s home, they found footwear with traces of blood matching the prints at the crime scene and money from the cash register.
In a confession made years later, Johnson assured that he acted under the effects of crack and that he murdered the workers because they refused to give him the keys to the safe. He also said that the stolen money was to buy drugs.
Before receiving the lethal injection, Johnson was served one last meal of his choice, consisting of two double cheeseburgers with bacon, onion rings, a pizza and two strawberry milkshakes.
Since the Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1,536 people have been executed in the United States, 91 of them in Missouri.
