As Judges Show Leniency to White Cops Who Murder Blacks, MO Authorities Execute Black Man Convicted for Murdering a White Cop After a Trial where Racist Prosecutor Deliberately Struck All Black Jurors
/From [HERE] and [HERE] Despite a court-appointed special prosecutor’s request to vacate his death sentence, Missouri death-row prisoner Kevin Johnson was executed on November 29, 2022. The Missouri Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding a stay in the case less than 36 hours before the scheduled execution. Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced during the court's hearing that he would not grant clemency in the case.
White authorities murdered him by lethal injection.
The execution went ahead after the US Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, according to the court’s website. On Monday, the Missouri Supreme Court had denied Johnson’s request for a stay after hearing arguments that racial discrimination played a role in his prosecution.
Johnson, 37, was pronounced dead at 7:40 p.m. CT. He didn’t give a final statement, according to Missouri Department of Corrections spokesperson Karen Pojmann.
St. Louis Circuit Judge Mary Elizabeth Ott appointed E.E. Keenan as special prosecutor on October 12. Keenan’s investigation found that Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch sought death sentence for Black defendants charged with killing police officers but didn’t seek the equivalent for a white defendant, Trenton Foster, charged with the same crime. The investigation also uncovered a memo indicating that McCulloch’s team struck Black jurors “deliberate[ly]” during Johnson’s second trial. Johnson’s first trial had resulted in a hung jury. Keenan concluded that, “These facts and others leave no serious doubt that Mr. McCulloch’s office discriminated,” and, in a November 15 motion, he urged the court to vacate Johnson’s death sentence so a “lawful trial and sentence may proceed.”
Ott denied Keenan’s motion on November 16 and in a later order on November 19 cited the time constraints preventing parties from appropriately preparing for a hearing and the court from “thoughtfully consider[ing]” the facts. Ott wrote that it was “inexplicable” that these claims were brought forward only 14 days prior to Johnson’s execution date and found it “disconcerting” that the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s office requested the court appoint a special prosecutor only a month earlier in October. On November 21, Keenan filed a motion with the Missouri Supreme Court, which set oral arguments regarding the stay of execution for November 28, one day before Johnson’s execution date. “There is no benefit to the public in rushing this execution forward tomorrow,” Keenan told the court. “What staying this execution will do is allow the legal process to proceed and, whatever the outcome is, it will ensure the public can have confidence that if we have a process or the death penalty that is carried out equitably and in a way the public can have confidence in.”