Execution

The bipartisan Missouri bill would require unanimous juries in death penalty cases, and automatically expunge nonviolent crimes after people serve their sentences. But Senate Majority Leader Tony Luetkemeyer, a Republican from Parkville, says the death penalty changes won’t pass.

Lance Shockley died by lethal injection last year. State courts have rejected prisoners' requests for DNA testing in recent years.

Anti-capital punishment advocates say the death penalty is costlier to taxpayers than life in prison because many defendants appeal their sentences, and the appeals process can force victims’ families to relive their trauma.

Missouri is one of two states where, if a jury is deadlocked on whether to sentence someone to death, the judge can issue the death penalty. The bill also establishes an automatic record-clearing process for most nonviolent offenses.

"We're talking about constitutional rights in someone's dying moments," one advocate said.

Lethal injection is tainted with error, ineptitude and secrecy that's led to many botched executions and unnecessary suffering. Missouri passed a law shielding the identity of the people involved in lethal injections, following a scandal over the credibility of its chief executioner.

Of the past 10 people who have faced execution in Missouri, at least six had children. For kids of people on death row, there are complicated emotions and little support.

Missouri law allowed a judge to sentence Shockley to death in 2009 even after a jury deadlocked and couldn’t decide on the punishment. Last week, advocates marched to Gov. Mike Kehoe's office to deliver a petition with 31,000 signatures asking for an investigation.

Missouri is one of two states where a judge can hand down death when juries cannot agree unanimously on a sentence. Since the law changed in 1984, at least 18 people have been sentenced to death by a judge, and four have been executed.

The family of Marcellus Williams has reported receiving death threats since the state of Missouri executed him last week. A representative of his son said the threats were made via phone calls, emails and anonymous social media messages.

Marcellus Williams had always maintained that he had nothing to do with the stabbing death of a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. State and federal courts rejected numerous last-minute requests to halt the execution and review the case.

Without intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court, Marcellus Williams will be executed after 6 p.m. Tuesday. Gov. Mike Parson has said he will not grant clemency to Williams.