Coalition Wants Execution Blocked

A coalition of Missouri groups wants Governor Parson to block next week’s scheduled execution of a convicted killer. They say Ernest Lee Johnson meets the state statutory and clinical standards to be diagnosed with an intellectual or a developmental disability. Johnson has been convicted of the brutal killings of three people at a Columbia gas station in 1994. Nimrod Chapel, with the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP, says the groups want the governor to commute Johnson’s sentence to life without parole.

The ACLU of Missouri, Missouri Catholic Conference, Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and others have delivered to the Governor’s Office more than 23-thousand petitions calling for clemency.