Ernest Johnson execution: Man ‘with mental capacity of child’ given lethal injection in Missouri

Ernest Johnson
AP
Matt Watts6 October 2021

A man has been executed for murder in Missouri despite pleas for clemency by advocates who said he had the mental capacity of a child.

Ernest Johnson’s pleas for leniency had received support from Pope Francis and two members of Congress.

But the 61-year-old received a lethal injection on Tuesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre after the US Supreme Court refused to consider a stay of execution.

Johnson killed three convenience store workers in a 1994 robbery.

Attorneys for Johnson argued he was ineligible for the death penalty because multiple IQ tests have shown he had an intellectual disability and still reads at a third-grade level.

In his written last statement, Johnson said he was sorry “and have remorse for what I do.” He said he loved his family and friends and thanked those who prayed for him.

He silently mouthed words to relatives as the execution began.

His breathing became laboured, he puffed out his cheeks, then swallowed hard. Within seconds, all movement stopped.

The state moved ahead with executing Johnson despite claims by his attorney that doing so would violate the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits executing intellectually disabled people.

It was the first execution in Missouri since May 2020 and just the seventh in the US this year.

A representative for Pope Francis was among those who urged Republican Governor Mike Parson to grant clemency, telling Parson in a letter that the pope “wishes to place before you the simple fact of Mr. Johnson’s humanity and the sacredness of all human life.” Parson announced Monday that he would not intervene.

It wasn’t the first time a pope has sought to intervene in a Missouri execution. In 1999, during his visit to St. Louis, Pope John Paul II persuaded Democratic Governor Mel Carnahan to grant clemency to Darrell Mease, weeks before Mease was to be put to death for a triple killing. Carnahan, who died in 2000, was a Baptist, as is Parson.

In 2018, Pope Francis changed church teaching to say capital punishment can never be sanctioned because it constitutes an “attack” on human dignity.

Catholic leaders have been outspoken opponents of the death penalty in many states.

Racial justice activists and two Missouri members of congress - Democratic US Representatives Cori Bush of St Louis and Emmanuel Cleaver of Kansas City -also called on Parson to show mercy to Johnson, who is Black.

But Parson announced Monday he would not grant clemency, and the courts declined to intervene.

Johnson’s crime shook the central Missouri city of Columbia nearly 28 years ago.

Johnson was sentenced to death in his first trial and two other times. The second death sentence, in 2003, came after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally ill was unconstitutionally cruel. The Missouri Supreme Court tossed that second death sentence, and Johnson was sentenced a third time in 2006.

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