Missouri Affected By US Supreme Court Ruling On Death Penalty

by | Jun 24, 2002 | 0 comments

A US Supreme Court ruling might well overturn some death sentences imposed by judges in Missouri. The High Court has ruled in an Arizona case that a jury, not a judge, must decide whether a defendant is sentenced to death. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon says he and his staff are studying the ruling to decide how it affects the state. Nixon says the ruling likely doesn’t bar judges from imposing the death sentence in all cases, but does greatly restrict it. Missouri Attorney General’s Website.

Capital cases where the defendent was sentenced  by a judge, rather than a jury:

Defendant pleaded guilty or waived guilt-phase jury

Court sentenced to death after jury unable to agree:

The most recently-imposed death sentence was imposed in April, 2002 by a judge.  Boone County Circuit Judge Gene Hamilton sentenced Deandra Buchanan of Columbia to death after a jury imported from Henry County couild not agree on what the penalty should be.  The jury had convicted Buchanan of murdering his aunt, stepfather, and girlfriend in November, 2000. Buchanan is not yet at the Potosi Prison. He is still being processed by the Department of Corrections.

In 1991, Michael Taylor and Roderick Nunley pleaded guilty to kidnapping, raping, and killing Ann Harrison, a 15-year old girl from Kansas City.  The Kansas City Star reports both men later admitted they pleaded guilty so they would avoid a jury trial that might bring a recommendation from the jury that they be executed.  But the judge hearing the case sentenced them to  death anyway.

Keith Smith was convicted in 1994 of killing a man and his elderly housekeeper.  The jury recommended a life prison term in the death of the man but could not agree on the punishment for the death of the housekeeper. The judge then sentenced Smith to be executed.

The St. Loius Post-Dispatch lists these other cases:

  • Darryl Shurn, who pleaded guilty to killing a federal witness, got a death sentence after his jury deadlocked.  After an appeals court threw out that conviction. At his second trial, Shurn pleaded guilty and took a life prison term without parole.
  • Winston Bell, who set his wife on fire, had a deadlocked jury in his first trial.  He got a jury recommendation of life in prison at his second trial  But the judge in St. Louis County sentenced him to death.
  • Antonio Richardson faces a death sentence for his role in killing two sisters who were thrown from a bridge in St. Louis into the Mississippi River in 1991.  A judge imposed the death sentence on him in 1994. Richardson’s case might also be under review because of an earlier U. S. Supreme Court ruling banning execution of the mentally retarded.
  • Andre Morrow, convicted of killing a man during a carjacking in Brentwood in 1994,  The jury that convicted him deadlocked on the punishment and a judge sentenced Morrow to death.
  • Joseph Whitfield, convicted of killing a man in 1988, was sentenced to death by a judge in 1994.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says at least two prisoners sentenced by judges without a jury recommendation have been executed: Reginald Powell, whose jury deadlocked on punishment after convicting him of killing two men during a robbery in 1986; and Milton V. Griffin-El, who killed a man and was sentenced by a judge in 1987.  Both Powell and Griffin-El were executed in 1998.

Attorney General Nixon’s staff lists another case not covered above: Andrew Lyons, convicted of two murders in southeast Missouri. He was sentenced to death in 1996 by a judge.

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