US Executions | My Crime Library

Ruben Gutierrez Execution Scheduled For Today

The State of Texas is getting ready to executed Ruben Gutierrez for the murder of Escolastica Harrison in 1998

According to court documents Ruben Gutierrez and two accomplices would break into the home of 85 year old Escolastica Harrison. During the robbery the elderly woman would be beaten and stabbed to death

Ruben Gutierrez would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Gutierrez has insisted over the years that he had nothing to do with the murder of Esccolastica Harrison and has been pushing for DNA testing to prove his innocence

Ruben Gutierrez will be put to death by lethal injection tonight, July 16 2024, unless he gets a last minute stay

Update- The execution was postponed at the last minute by the Supreme Court due to the DNA issues

Ruben Gutierrez Execution News

Texas is set to execute Ruben Gutierrez on Tuesday for the 1998 murder of an elderly woman in Brownsville after he spent the past decade fighting for DNA testing of evidence that he says would prove he did not kill her.

Gutierrez would be the third person executed by the state of Texas this year. For the rest of 2024, Texas has scheduled five more executions, the same as all other states combined, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Gutierrez, now 47, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the stabbing and beating murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison during a home robbery. Harrison, who lived with her nephew in the mobile home park she owned and who distrusted banks, had $600,000 stashed in her home at the time of her death, according to court records.

Alex Hernandez, the victim’s nephew and godson, planned to drive six hours from his home in Brownsville to the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville to attend the execution with his girlfriend and a few friends on Tuesday. He had made the trip in 2020 and was in the waiting room when the warden told him the U.S. Supreme Court had halted Gutierrez’s execution just over an hour before it was set to take place. He thought the news was a “really bad joke.”

Now, four years later, “it’s just really hit home,” he said on Monday. “It’s really heart-wrenching, heartbreaking again having to relive it.”

Hernandez, 55, remembered his aunt, whom family members affectionately called “Aunt Peco,” as “a really happy person, always wanting to sing and always having a smile on her face.”

She taught ESL at the local elementary school, where Hernandez said she was a “really strict teacher” intent on helping her students, many of whom were migrants, learn English. Hernandez spent summers growing up with his aunt and uncle, and he recalled chasing butterflies around the trailer park and eating peaches plucked off the trees that surrounded Harrison’s home.

“She was just the most beautiful person,” he said. “She wasn’t just some old lady.”

Gutierrez and two other suspects — Rene Garcia and Pedro Gracia — were accused of planning to rob Harrison, but each pegged the other two for the murder. Garcia, who pleaded guilty, is serving a life sentence. Gracia was released from jail on a $75,000 bond and vanished. He has been wanted by authorities since.

Gutierrez maintains that he did not kill Harrison, that he was not inside her home when she was killed and that he did not know of nor consent to any intention to kill her.

In multiple appeals, Gutierrez has requested, and been denied, DNA testing of evidence that was collected at the scene but never tested, including fingernail scrapings, a hair found in Harrison’s hand and blood stains. He has argued that DNA testing of those materials would corroborate his claims that he did not kill Harrison, and because the court has denied his requests for testing, Gutierrez has argued that his due process rights were violated, rendering his execution unjust and premature.

“I just don’t understand what they’re afraid of,” said Shawn Nolan, Gutierrez’s lawyer. If the case happened today, he added, “they would test everything. That’s what they do with these cases, always, especially in a murder case, and especially in a capital case.”

His lawyers also argued that a jury would not have sentenced Gutierrez to death if the results of DNA testing pointed to another suspect as the killer.

“A juror who’s going to decide whether they’re going to sentence somebody to death or not surely should know whether that person was the actual killer,” Nolan said. “In this case, the prosecution argued to the jury that Ruben was the actual killer, even though there was no direct evidence of that.”

Cameron County prosecutors argued that because there may have been multiple killers, any evidence tested that did not match Gutierrez’s DNA would not prove his innocence.

Prosecutors also argued that under Texas’ law of parties — which allows all those involved in a crime to be held criminally responsible for it, even if they did not carry it out themselves — Gutierrez would remain eligible for the death penalty, regardless of any DNA test results, given his admission that he had “planned the whole rip off.”

Gutierrez has maintained that the statement he gave about planning the robbery was false, and that he had “assented to it only after detectives threatened to arrest his wife and take away his children,” his attorneys said in a June 2019 court filing.

Gutierrez’s lawyers have further argued that evidence suggests that Harrison’s nephew, Avel Cuellar, masterminded the robbery. Cuellar, who is now dead, was initially considered a suspect by law enforcement but then dropped from the investigation.

In 2019, Gutierrez’s attorneys also challenged the constitutionality of a Texas law that limits when evidence can be DNA-tested after conviction. That law requires a convicted person, in order to get DNA testing, to show that he “would not have been convicted if exculpatory results had been obtained through DNA testing.”

“It’s a catch-22,” Nolan said.

Nolan argued, and a federal district court agreed, that Texas’ DNA statute was unconstitutional because it denied Gutierrez the ability to test evidence that would demonstrate his innocence and challenge his death sentence. But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling this year, saying the federal district court did not have jurisdiction over Gutierrez’s lawsuit.

In a petition that was still pending as of Tuesday morning, Gutierrez’s attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and halt his execution. Gutierrez’s application for clemency was denied on Friday.

Gutierrez’s execution has been delayed several times since he was sentenced to death 25 years ago.

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court halted Gutierrez’s execution just over an hour before he was set to die on the basis of an appeal he had filed saying that a new Texas policy banning religious advisers in the execution room with inmates violated his religious freedoms.

His execution was previously stayed in October 2019 by Texas’ highest criminal court due to a clerical error. Gutierrez’s attorneys had argued his death warrant was invalid because it didn’t have the proper seal from the court when it was delivered to the sheriff and an attorney. Before that, a federal district judge halted a September 2018 execution date to give Gutierrez’s new attorney more time to investigate his case.

Hernandez, the victim’s nephew and godson, said he had promised his mother that he would bear witness to Gutierrez’s execution.

“I’m not looking forward to the execution. I’m looking forward to the end,” he said. “My aunt would probably want me to forgive him, and I do. But he has to pay for his crime.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/07/16/texas-execution-death-penalty-ruben-gutierrez

Richard Rojem Execution Scheduled For Today

The State of Oklahoma is getting set to execute Richard Rojem for the sexual assault and murder of a seven year old girl

According to court documents seven year old Layla Cummings was abducted from her apartment that she shared with her mother and brother. A search would take place and police would find the body of the seven year old in a plowed field later that day. The child had been sexually assaulted and stabbed repeatedly

Richard Rojem who was the stepfather of Layla Cummings had separated from the child’s mother two months prior to the brutal murder. Police would find evidence that linked him to the sexual assault and murder of the little girl

Richard Rojem would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Richard Rojem is scheduled to be executed on June 27 2024 by lethal injection

Richard Rojem Execution News

Oklahoma plans to execute a man Thursday who was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 7-year-old girl in 1984.

Richard Rojem, 66, has exhausted his appeals and is scheduled to receive a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

During a clemency hearing earlier this month, Rojem denied responsibility for killing his former stepdaughter, Layla Cummings. The child’s mutilated and partially clothed body was discovered in a field in western Oklahoma near the town of Burns Flat. She had been stabbed to death.

“I wasn’t a good human being for the first part of my life, and I don’t deny that,” said Rojem, handcuffed and wearing a red prison uniform, when he appeared via a video link from prison before the state’s Pardon and Parole Board. “But I went to prison. I learned my lesson and I left all that behind.”

The board unanimously denied Rojem’s bid for mercy. Rojem’s attorney, Jack Fisher, said there are no pending appeals that would halt his execution.

Richard Rojem was previously convicted of raping two teenage girls in Michigan and prosecutors allege he was angry at Layla Cummings because she reported that he sexually abused her, leading to his divorce from the girl’s mother and his return to prison for violating his parole.

“For many years, the shock of losing her and the knowledge of the sheer terror, pain and suffering that she endured at the hands of this soulless monster was more than I could fathom how to survive day to day,” Layla’s mother, Mindy Lynn Cummings, wrote to the parole board.

Rojem’s attorneys argued that DNA evidence taken from the girl’s fingernails did not link him to the crime and urged the clemency board to recommend his life be spared and that his sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole.

“If my client’s DNA is not present, he should not be convicted,” Fisher said.

Prosecutors say plenty of evidence other than DNA was used to convict Rojem, including a fingerprint that was discovered outside the girl’s apartment on a cup from a bar Rojem left just before the girl was kidnapped. A condom wrapper found near the girl’s body also was linked to a used condom found in Rojem’s bedroom, prosecutors said.

A Washita County jury convicted Rojem in 1985 after just 45 minutes of deliberations. His previous death sentences were twice overturned by appellate courts because of trial errors. A Custer County jury ultimately handed him his third death sentence in 2007.

Oklahoma, which has executed more inmates per capita than any other state in the nation since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, has carried out 12 executions since resuming lethal injections in October 2021 following a nearly six-year hiatus resulting from problems with executions in 2014 and 2015.

Death penalty opponents planned to hold vigils Thursday outside the governor’s mansion in Oklahoma City and the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

https://apnews.com/article/oklahoma-execution-richard-rojem-57ca75b05212ecb59247747080fbce9e

Richard Rojem Execution

Oklahoma executed a man Thursday who was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing his 7-year-old former stepdaughter in 1984.

Richard Rojem, 66, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was declared dead at 10:16 a.m., prison officials said. Rojem, who had been in prison since 1985, was the longest-serving inmate on Oklahoma’s death row.

When asked if he had any last words, Rojem, who was strapped to a gurney and had an IV in his tattooed left arm, said: “I don’t. I’ve said my goodbyes.”

He looked briefly toward several witnesses who were inside a room next to the death chamber before the first drug, the sedative midazolam, began to flow. He was declared unconscious about 5 minutes later, at 10:08 a.m., and stopped breathing at about 10:10 a.m.

A spiritual adviser was in the death chamber with Rojem during the execution

Rojem had denied responsibility for killing his former stepdaughter, Layla Cummings. The child’s mutilated and partially clothed body was discovered in a field in rural Washita County near the town of Burns Flat on July 7, 1984. She had been stabbed to death.

Rojem was previously convicted of raping two teenage girls in Michigan, and prosecutors said he was angry at Layla Cummings because she reported that Rojem sexually abused her, leading to his divorce from the girl’s mother and his return to prison for violating his parole.

Rojem’s attorneys argued at a clemency hearing this month that DNA evidence taken from the girl’s fingernails did not link him to the crime.

“If my client’s DNA is not present, he should not be convicted,” attorney Jack Fisher said.

In a statement read by Attorney General Gentner Drummond after the execution, Layla’s mother, Mindy Lynn Cummings, said: “We remember, honor and hold her forever in our hearts as the sweet and precious 7-year-old she was.

“Today marks the final chapter of justice determined by three separate juries for Richard Rojem’s heinous acts nearly 40 years ago when he stole her away like the monster he was.”

Rojem, who testified at the hearing via a video link from prison, said he wasn’t responsible for the girl’s death. The panel voted 5-0 not to recommend to the governor that Rojem’s life be spared.

“I wasn’t a good human being for the first part of my life, and I don’t deny that,” said Rojem, handcuffed and wearing a red prison uniform. “But I went to prison. I learned my lesson and I left all that behind.”

Prosecutors said there was plenty of evidence to convict Rojem, including a fingerprint that was discovered outside the girl’s apartment on a cup from a bar Rojem left just before the girl was kidnapped. A condom wrapper found near the girl’s body also was linked to a used condom found in Rojem’s bedroom, prosecutors said.

Oklahoma, which has executed more inmates per capita than any other state in the nation since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, has now carried out 13 executions since resuming lethal injections in October 2021 following a nearly six-year hiatus resulting from problems with executions in 2014 and 2015.

https://apnews.com/article/oklahoma-execution-richard-rojem-57ca75b05212ecb59247747080fbce9e

Jamie Mills Execution Scheduled For Today

The State of Alabama is preparing to execute Jamie Mills today, May 30 2024, for a double murder that took place in 2004

According to court documents Jamie Mills and his common law wife JoAnne Mills would go to the home of an elderly couple, Floyd and Vera Hill, in order to rob them. Once he gained access to the home Jamie would attack the couple using a hammer, tire iron and a machete

Eighty seven year old Floyd Hill would die at the scene. Seventy two year old Vera Hill would die two and a half months later

When he was arrested Jamie Mills would deny being at the residence and that he had never met Floyd and Vera Hill. This turned out to be a lie. When police searched his vehicle they would find prescription drugs belonging to the Hills. Police would also find a duffel bag filled with bloody clothing

Jamie Mills would be arrested, convicted of the murders and sentenced to death

Update = Jamie Mills was executed by lethal injection

Jamie Mills News

A man convicted of killing an elderly couple in 2004 is set to be executed by Alabama on Thursday, which will make him the second man executed in the state this year and the sixth in the country.

The execution of Jamie Ray Mills, 50, comes about four months after that of Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was put to death by nitrogen gas despite his objections to the method.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall noted in a statement that Smith’s execution “marked the first time in the nation – and the world – that nitrogen hypoxia was used as the method of execution,” saying the state “has achieved something historic.” Four days after that execution, Marshall filed a motion to set Mills’ execution date, writing that “it was time for his death sentence to be carried out.”

“There is no doubt that Mills committed those offenses,” he wrote. “Mills’ convictions and sentence are final.”

The Alabama Supreme Court approved Marshall’s request for execution on March 20, allowing Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to set Thursday’s execution.

Here’s everything to know about Mills’ execution.

Mills is set to be executed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, about 50 miles northeast of Mobile.

The execution is not set for a specific time but rather a 30-hour window that will begin at 12 a.m. Thursday, May 30, and end at 6 a.m. on Friday, May 31, according to reporting by The Montgomery Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network.

Mills will be put to death by lethal injection, considered a “primary method” of execution by all states and the federal government, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The kinds of drugs or combination of drugs vary across jurisdictions, with states using one, two, or three drugs to put inmates to death. The drugs vary depending on availability and many states have struggled to obtain the drugs as sometimes overseas suppliers decline to be involved in the death penalty.

“Most three-drug protocols use an anesthetic or sedative, followed by a drug to paralyze the inmate, and finally a drug to stop the heart. The one- and two-drug protocols typically use an overdose of an anesthetic or sedative to cause death,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The Alabama Department of Corrections has not answered USA TODAY’s request for which drug or drugs they plan to use on Mills.

They also haven’t said what his last meal request is.

This week the 11th Circuit Court of Criminal Appeals denied two defense motions seeking a delay in Mills’ execution The defense can still seek a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mills argues that ex-wife JoAnn Mills, who testified against him in connection with the 2007 murders of Floyd and Vera Hill, lied on the stand. Floyd, 87, and Vera, 72, were beaten to death and robbed in their home in Guin, about 70 miles northwest of Birmingham.

JoAnn Mills was considered a key witness in the case, testifying that she saw her husband kill the Hills with a ball peen hammer, tire tool and a machete, according to court documents filed in Marion County. The couple was arrested a day after the murders, and were found with an assortment of items that connected them to the crime scene, court records show, including the suspected murder weapons in their car.

Jamie Mills asserted that the physical evidence collected not only proved his innocence, but supported the theory that he was framed by a local drug user he says had access to his vehicle on the night the Hills were killed.

He says it calls into question “not only the reliability of the capital trial verdict in this case, but also the integrity of the court,” according to the April 5 motion. About two weeks later, Jamie Mills filed another motion alleging that he might be strapped to the execution gurney for an extended period of time, which he says is “unnecessarily cruel.”

There is an “imminent risk” at play, his attorneys argue in the April 26 filing, saying that he could be subject to an “ unnecessarily prolonged and tortuous execution at the hands of state officials” with unreviewable authority.

Jamie Mills has asked the court for access to his attorney over the course of the execution, citing examples of four inmates were either executed or were subject to attempted executions that he argues were carried out improperly and caused unnecessary suffering.

All of the allegations Jamie Mills has brought forth in the weeks leading up to his execution could have been made earlier, according to a May 17 response by Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall.

“For a condemned inmate without the law or facts on his side, the best chance of delaying his execution is by filing multiple lawsuits in hopes of overwhelming the Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court at the last minute,” causing the execution to be carried out under a “compressed or untenable timeline,” according to court records.

Jamie Mills has yet to provide any new evidence that could actually help clear his name, and instead he is “unwilling to believe that JoAnn might have simply done the right thing in testifying against him,” according to Marshall.

JoAnn Mills was only offered a life sentence instead of the death penalty because of the “sincerity and remorsefulness” she showed on the stand, according to Marshall.

Claims by Jamie Mills about the validity of JoAnn Mills’ testimony were “improper, untimely, and meritless,” serving as a way to a “further delay the execution,” Marshall wrote.

He also dismissed concerns of unnecessary cruelty that Mills could face at the hands of the corrections department, saying there’s no data to support the claim that he could be strapped to a gurney for an “unconstitutionally long time.” Marshall says that there is no constitutional right that would grant Jamie Mills the ability to have lawyers in the execution chamber.

Two federal judges denied Mills’ petitions for relief last week, both stating that he could have brought the information forward “several years ago.”

Emily Marks, a judge for the Middle District Court of Alabama, wrote in a May 21 response that the claims made against the the corrections department were “barred by statute of limitations.”

The delay in making these claims known recently is “unreasonable, unnecessary, and inexcusable … The practice of filing lawsuits and requests for stay of execution at the last minute where the facts were known well in advance is ineffective, unworkable, and must stop,” Marks wrote.

Marks did acknowledge that the correction department has been known on “several occasions” to subject inmates − including Joe James, Alan Miller, and Kenneth Smith − to “prolonged executions or execution attempts during which those inmates were unnecessarily strapped to the execution gurney.”

But it was up to Mills to bring the allegations forward sooner, Marks wrote.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/05/30/jamie-mills-execution-what-to-know/73806153007

Jamie Mills Execution

An Alabama man received a lethal injection Thursday for the 2004 deaths of an elderly couple who police said were attacked with a hammer, machete and tire tool during a robbery at their home.

Jamie Ray Mills, 50, was pronounced dead at 6:26 p.m. after a three-drug injection at a southwest Alabama prison, authorities said.

Mills was the first inmate put to death by the state since Alabama became the first in the nation to execute an inmate using nitrogen gas months ago. Lethal injection remains Alabama’s default execution method unless a condemned inmate requests nitrogen gas or the electric chair.

Mills was convicted of capital murder in the deaths of Floyd Hill, 87, and his wife Vera Hill, 72. Prosecutors said they were attacked on June 24, 2004, at their home in Guin about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Birmingham during a robbery where $140 and prescription drugs were stolen.

“Tonight, two decades after he committed these murders, Jamie Mills has paid the price for his heinous crimes. I pray for the victims and their loved ones,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.

As the execution began, Mills gave a thumbs up to family members, who were watching from a witness room.

“I love my family. I love my brother and sister. I couldn’t ask for more,” Mills said as he looked in the direction of his brother and sister. He also thanked his attorney, Charlotte Morrison of the Equal Justice Initiative. “Charlotte, you fought hard for me. I love y’all. Carry on.”

Some of his relatives cried softly through the execution.

As the first execution drug — a sedative — flowed, Mills appeared to quickly lose consciousness as a spiritual adviser prayed at the foot of the gurney.

In 2007, a jury convicted Jamie Mills of capital murder and voted 11-1 for the death sentence that was imposed by a judge.

Floyd Hill was the primary caregiver for his wife, who was diabetic and in poor health. He kept her medications in a tackle box in the couple’s kitchen. The Hills regularly held yard sales to supplement their income. When the couple’s granddaughter couldn’t reach them, officers arrived to find them in pools of blood in the backyard shed where they stored yard sale items.

Floyd Hill died from wounds to the head and neck and Vera Hill died about 12 weeks later from complications of head trauma, according to court filings. Investigators said the tacklebox, murder weapons and bloody clothes were later found in the trunk of Mills’ car.

Members of the victims’ family witnessed the execution and issued a statement that “justice has been served” after a 20-year wait.

“Our family now can have some closure to this heinous crime that he committed and our loving grandparents can rest in peace. Let this be a lesson for those that believe justice will not find you. Hopefully, this will prevent others from committing future crimes. God help us all,” the statement from the Hill and Freeman families read.

At the 2007 trial, JoAnn Mills became the key witness against her common-law husband. She testified that after staying up all night smoking methamphetamine, her husband took her along to the victims’ home where she testified she saw her husband repeatedly strike the couple in the backyard shed, court documents indicate.

In final appeals, attorneys for Mills, who maintained his innocence at trial, had argued newly obtained evidence showed the prosecution lied about having a plea agreement with Mills’ wife to spare her from seeking the death penalty against her if she testified against her husband.

JoAnn Mill’s trial attorney wrote in a February affidavit that before the 2007 trial, he met with the district attorney, who agreed to let her plead guilty to a lesser charge if she testified. On the stand, JoAnn Mills said she was only hoping to gain “some forgiveness from God” by testifying.

The Equal Justice Initiative said after the execution that prosecutors “lied, deceived and misrepresented the reliability of the evidence against Jamie Mills for 17 years.”

“There will come a day when governments recognize the perverse injustice of this process and the wrongfulness of this punishment. It will be a day that is too late for Jamie Mills which makes his death tragically regrettable and mournfully unjust,” the statement added.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday afternoon declined the request to halt the execution.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said there was a trove of evidence against Mills. “His actions were cold and calculated, and his assigned punishment has never been more deserved,” Marshall said.

On Jan. 25, Alabama executed inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas, a first-of-its-kind method that stirred fresh debate over capital punishment. The state said the method was humane, but critics called it cruel and experimental.

Smith was executed by breathing pure nitrogen gas through a face mask, causing oxygen deprivation. It was the first new execution method used in the U.S. since lethal injection, now the most commonly used method, was introduced in 1982. Smith was convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett.

https://apnews.com/article/alabama-execution-elderly-couple-murder-lethal-injection-c7677a5fdf91312b6860c94de2afa565

Brian Dorsey Execution Scheduled For Apr 9/24

Brian Dorsey is scheduled to be executed by the State of Missouri for the murder of his cousin and her husband

According to court documents Brian Dorsey would call his cousin Sarah Bonnie and told her that drug dealers were at his door demanding that he paid him. Dorsey told her he was scared they would break into the home and hurt him

Brian Dorsey would go to the home of Sarah Bonnie an her husband Ben Bonnie. Soon after arriving at the Bonnie home Dorsey would shoot and kill both Sarah and Ben. The couples young child was present at the time of the shooting but was not harmed

Brian Dorsey would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Brian Dorsey and his lawyers were attempting to get his execution postponed by claiming his original attorneys at the double murder trial were not paid enough so they did not put forth any effort

Update – Brian Dorsey was executed by lethal injection

Brian Dorsey News

A man convicted of murdering his cousin and her husband after they brought him to safety when he told them that drug dealers were at his door will be executed Tuesday, Missouri’s governor said.

Brian Dorsey, 51, requested clemency, but Gov. Mike Parson affirmed the state Supreme Court-ordered sanction Monday, with his office saying in a statement that it is “an appropriate and legal sentence for his heinous crimes.”

On Dec. 23, 2006, Brian Dorsey grabbed his cousin’s shotgun and fatally shot her and her husband in their Callaway County residence. Sarah Bonnie and Ben Bonnie drove him to the home for the night after he asked for her help, saying drug dealers were at his door demanding he cover debts, according to the case record.

The couple’s 4-year-old daughter was in the home, but she was not physically harmed, the record states.

“Brian Dorsey punished his loving family for helping him in a time of need,” Parson said in the statement Monday.

He continued: “The pain Dorsey brought to others can never be rectified, but carrying out Dorsey’s sentence according to Missouri law and the Court’s order will deliver justice and provide closure.”

Dorsey pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, and a jury took up the matter of sentencing in 2008.

He later argued that the state’s flat fee payment to his otherwise private lawyers resulted in an insufficient defense. His defense also included the assertion that he was experiencing drug-induced psychosis the night of the slayings.

A clinical psychologist for the defense recited a history for Dorsey that included mental health issues, suicide attempts and drug addiction, according to the Missouri Supreme Court’s affirmation of his sentence in March.

But that jury weighing his fate found seven aggravating factors that led it to endorse execution for Dorsey, according to the Supreme Court.

Dorsey challenged his government-ordered fate multiple times, including by filing two writ of habeas corpus challenges with the Missouri Supreme Court, which has denied all his appeals. He also mounted challenges in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear them.

In December, the state Supreme Court set an execution date of April 9. The state is expected to use lethal injection.

Dorsey’s plight found unusual support in January, when dozens of Missouri Corrections Department employees urged Parson to grant clemency to Dorsey, who has behind bars for 17 years.

Troy Steele, the former warden at Potosi Correctional Center, where Dorsey has been housed, described him in a review as a “model inmate” and said he was allowed to work as a barber — even cutting the warden’s own hair.

The officers were joined by some family members, including cousin Jenni Gerhauser, in opposing his execution.

“Generally, we believe in the use of capital punishment,” corrections officers said in a letter to the governor. “But we are in agreement that the death penalty is not the appropriate punishment for Brian Dorsey.”

The Missouri Corrections Officers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. local time Tuesday, according to NBC affiliate KOMU of Columbia.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-execute-man-murdered-cousin-husband-governor-says-rcna146938

Brian Dorsey Execution

Missouri death row inmate Brian Dorsey was executed on Tuesday evening after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, officials confirmed.

Dorsey was convicted of murdering his cousin and her husband nearly 20 years ago.

The state carried out Dorsey’s death sentence by lethal injection at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri’s Department of Corrections said in a statement. He was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. local time.

The execution proceeded on Tuesday evening after the high court rejected two separate bids to intervene. There were no noted dissents. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, confirmed Monday that the state would move forward with Dorsey’s death sentence, rejecting a separate request for clemency.

More than 70 current and former corrections officers had urged Parson to commute Dorsey’s sentence, arguing he had been rehabilitated, and his lawyers said that Dorsey was in a drug-induced psychosis when he committed the killings in 2006.

Dorsey, 52, was the first inmate in Missouri to be executed this year after four were put to death in 2023.

Kirk Henderson, Dorsey’s attorney, criticized the state for moving forward with the execution.

“If anyone deserves mercy, surely it is Brian, who has been fully rehabilitated and whose death sentence was so flawed that five of his jurors believe he should not be executed,” Henderson said in a statement. “Executing Brian Dorsey is a pointless cruelty, an exercise of the state’s power that serves no legitimate penological purpose.”

Dorsey pleaded guilty to shooting and killing his cousin, Sarah Bonnie, and her husband, Ben Bonnie, at their home on Dec. 23, 2006. According to court filings, Dorsey had called his cousin for money to give to two drug dealers who were at his apartment, and the three returned to the Bonnies’ home later that night after they agreed to help him.

After Sarah and Ben Bonnie, and their daughter, went to bed, Dorsey grabbed a shotgun and shot the couple, after which prosecutors accused Dorsey of sexually assaulting his cousin. He then stole several items from the Bonnies’ home, including jewelry and their car, and attempted to sell them to repay his drug debt, state officials said.

The bodies were discovered after Sarah Bonnie’s parents went to the home after the couple was missing from a family gathering on Christmas Eve. When they went into the house, they found the couple’s 4-year-old daughter sitting on the couch, who told her grandparents her mother wouldn’t wake up.

Dorsey turned himself in to the police three days after the killings and confessed to the murders. He was then sentenced to death.

After failed appeals of his death sentence, the Missouri Supreme Court issued an execution warrant in December. Dorsey sought further relief, arguing his conviction and sentence violated the Sixth Amendment, though his efforts were unsuccessful.

In one request for the Supreme Court’s intervention, Dorsey’s attorneys argued that the lawyers appointed by the Missouri Public Defender Office to represent him were paid a flat fee of $12,000 apiece, which presented a conflict of interest that pitted their personal finance interests directly against Dorsey’s right to effective assistance of counsel.

Dorsey’s current attorneys told the Supreme Court in a filing that his appointed lawyers provided “grossly deficient representation” in a capital case and pressured their client to plead guilty with no agreement that prosecutors wouldn’t pursue the death penalty.

They argued in a second request that Dorsey has achieved “remarkable redemption and rehabilitation” in his more than 17 years on death row, and the “goals of capital punishment will not be furthered by” his execution.

Dorsey’s attorneys also raised concerns about Missouri’s execution protocol, which says nothing about the use of any pain relief. They describe their client in court filings as obese, diabetic and a former user of intravenous drugs, all of which could make it difficult to establish IV lines for the lethal injection and may lead Missouri Department of Corrections employees to use “cut downs.”

Under the procedure, large incisions are made in the arms, legs or other areas of the body, and tissue is pulled away from the vein. A federal lawsuit filed on Dorsey’s behalf in Missouri district court alleged that no anesthetic is given during “cut downs,” and the procedure occurs before an inmate meets with their spiritual adviser for the last time, which Dorsey plans to do.

His attorneys argued that the “significant pain and anguish” Dorsey would be in when he meets his spiritual adviser would hinder his ability to freely exercise his religion.

A settlement was reached Saturday, under which the state would take steps to limit the risk of extreme pain for Dorsey, according to the Associated Press.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brian-dorsey-execution-supreme-court

Michael Smith Execution Scheduled For Today

Michael Smith is scheduled to be executed today, April 4 2024, by the State of Oklahoma for a double murder

According to court documents Michael Smith would shoot and kill Janet Moore who was the mother of a man Smith believed was talking to the police

Michael Smith would also rob a convenience store the same day where he would shoot and kill the clerk Sharath Pulluru

Michel Smith would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. The murders took place in 2002

Michael Smith was executed by lethal injection on April 4 2024

Michael Smith News

An Oklahoma man is scheduled to be executed Thursday, April 4, for two separate murders in 2002 in Oklahoma City.

Michael DeWayne Smith will be put to death by lethal injection for killing Janet Moore and Sharath Pulluru in separate shootings on the same day in 2002.

Moore was 40 years old and a mother from Oklahoma City. Smith told police he went to the victim’s apartment looking for her son, and shot Moore because she wouldn’t be quiet.

Pulluru was a 24-year-old store clerk when Smith killed him on the same day at a convenience store where he worked.

Clemency was denied for Smith during a hearing in March. His attorney has argued Smith is intellectually disabled and shouldn’t be put to death. He also claims Smith was not in his right mind at the time of the murders.

Smith is only one of 10 percent of death row inmates in the country who is convicted of multiple killings.

Smith will be the first person executed in Oklahoma this year. The execution is set for 10 a.m. Thursday morning.

https://www.newson6.com/story/660e6a4a55ba29064cc740ef/oklahoma-man-scheduled-to-be-executed-for-murders-from-2002