Search Results for: Herbert Smulls

Herbert Smulls to be executed by lethal injection Jan. 29

December 9, 2013 By Jessica Machetta

The Supreme Court has issued an execution date for Herbert Smulls, 56, who was sentenced to death for the 1991 shooting of Stephen and Florence Honickman at a St. Louis County jewelry store they owned and operated. The Supreme Court has issued an execution warrant, allowing the state to execute Smulls by lethal injection Jan. 29, 2014.

Typically, customers would make an appointment with the Honickmans to examine jewelry for sale. In July, 1991, a person identifying himself as Jeffrey Taylor called the Honickmans and made an appointment to buy a diamond. “Jeffrey Taylor” was later identified as Herbert Smulls.

July 22, 1991, Smulls and Norman Brown went to the Honickmans’ store. After viewing several diamonds, Smulls and Brown left the store without making a purchase.

On the afternoon of July 27, 1991, Smulls and Brown followed another customer into the store. Florence Honickman was unable to show any jewelry at that time but suggested she might be able to help them later.

Smulls and Brown returned to the store that evening. After viewing some diamonds, Smulls and Brown went into a hallway, purportedly to discuss the diamond prices. A short time later, Florence looked up and saw Smulls aiming a pistol at her. She then ran and hid behind a door. Smulls fired three shots at her, striking her arm and side. Smulls then fired several shots at Stephen Honickman, who was struck three times. Smulls and Brown stole jewelry worn by Florence as she lie on the floor with serious injuries, and then took other items in the store.

After the two men fled, Florence called police. Stephen died from his wounds; Florence suffered permanent injuries from the attack.

Brown remains in prison on two life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus 90 years. Brown is 37 years old.

Smulls execution “a travesty” (AUDIO)

January 30, 2014 By Bob Priddy

One of those who watched the state execute prison inmate Herbert Smulls late last night calls the execution “a travesty of justice.” The person making that charge is not one of Smulls’ supporters. It’s one of his victims.

Herbert Smulls died 253 months aafter getting his death sentence for killing Chesterfield jeweler Stephen Honickman during a 1991 robbery. Although Honickman’s wife, Florence, was shot twice, she survived by playing dead. She says waiting more than twenty years to execute a murderer while the state spends millions of dolalrs on the inmate is a travesty of justice for her and her family. She says the state has not paid for any of her expenses to attend the execution.

She says there should be no reason, in a “just and a rational legal system” why appeals should continue longer than ten years. She says she and her family are the ones who have suffered cruel and unusal punishent; by having to wait so long for justice to be done. She says the system needs to spend more time thinking of the victims and less about the murderers.

AUDIO: post-execution news conference

Supreme Court limits setting execution dates

July 7, 2014 By Bob Priddy

The Missouri Supreme Court has decided it will not order more than one execution per month. A court source has told the Missourinet the policy has been enacted at the request of the Department of Corrections, which conducts executions at its prison in Bonne Terre.

The Department of Corrections has refused to explain why it asked the court to establish that practice or to make available any department officials to discuss the issue. A spokesman for Attorney General Chris Koster says he is aware of the policy but will not comment on it. About a year ago, Koster said that delays in setting execution dates threaten the state’s ability to administer capital punishment. He asked the court two years ago to set execution dates for nine inmates. One of them, Herbert Smulls, was executed in January. Another, Michael Worthington, is scheduled to die on August 6.

Executions have been held monthly since last November, except for May, when questions about Russell Bucklew’s physical fitness to be executed produced a court-ordered stay. The next execution scheduled is that of John Middleton next week. Another is set for August 6th.

But the Corrections Department has held multiple executions within single months seven times since the state legalized lethal injection. Three executions were done in August, 1997. Three inmates were executed within a three week period late in 1995. The most recent multiple-execution month is October, 2001. The most recent execution was that of John Winfield on June 15.

Three inmates’ attorneys argue against setting of their execution dates

February 24, 2014 By Mike Lear

Attorneys for three men sentenced to be executed have presented their arguments to the Missouri Supreme Court why it shouldn’t set a date for their executions. The Court ordered those attorneys to prepare those arguments in Show Cause orders issued in each case, January 29. The State Attorney General’s Office has responded to two of them.

Russell Bucklew, William Rousan and Cecil Clayton (photos courtesy; Missouri Department of Corrections)

Among the arguments attorneys for William Rousan, Russell Bucklew and Cecil Clayton separately make is that because their clients are plaintiffs in Zink v. Lombardi, ongoing federal litigation regarding Missouri’s lethal injection process, their executions should not proceed until that has been settled. To this point, the Attorney General’s Office argues legal precedent that federal litigation is not a reason not to set an execution date. Joseph Franklin, Allen Nicklasson and Herbert Smulls were also plaintiffs in Zink v. Lombardi when they were executed in November, December and January, respectively.

Attorneys for Clayton argue that he is incompetent to understand his punishment due to a deteriorating mental state, in part because of a head injury 25 years before he fatally shot Berry County Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Castetter in November, 1996. That injury at a sawmill resulted in the removal of part of the right frontal lobe of his brain. The Attorney General’s Office’s response to the arguments of Clayton’s attorneys is due March 5.

Attorneys for Bucklew, who in 1996 shot Michael Sanders, the presumed new boyfriend of his ex, say he suffers from malformed blood vessels that cause among other things, bleeding from his mouth and eyes, and could increase the risk of a painful or prolonged lethal injection. The state argues that doesn’t merit an indefinite delay in setting his execution date.

Rousan also claims instructions given to the jury at his trial were confusing; an issue the state says the Court and federal courts have already dealt with. Rousan, his son and brother participated in the murder of a rural Bonne Terre couple as part of a cattle theft and robbery.

Missouri is scheduled to carry out the execution by lethal injection of Michael Taylor early Wednesday morning. Taylor is one of two men sentenced to death after pleading guilty to the 1989 murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison of Kansas City.

On Friday the State Supreme Court set March 26 as the date for the execution of Jeffrey Ferguson for the 1989 abduction, rape and murder of 17-year-old Kelli Hall in St. Louis County.

Both Ferguson and Taylor were among four men for whom the Supreme Court in December ordered attorneys to present arguments why their execution dates should not be set. The others of those four were Roderick Nunley and David Barnett. Nunley is the second man who plead guilty in the murder of Harrison. Barnett stabbed each of his grandparents more than 10 times at their Glendale home before stealing their car and $120 in cash.

State officials testify to House Committee about execution procedures (AUDIO)

February 10, 2014 By Mike Lear

The Director of the Department of Corrections has for the first time spoken publicly about the questions and controversy raised in recent months over the carrying out of executions.

Director of the Department of Corrections George Lombardi testifies to the House Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability. (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

George Lombardi has told the House Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability it is a statutory requirement that his Department conduct executions, and it is working within the statutory framework in place to do so.

“Keeping in mind, please,” Lombardi asks of the Committee, “Statute mandates the Department of Corrections to carry out executions. It doesn’t say, ‘Try your best.'”

He says it is because of that mandate that the Department looked “all over the country” for a way to acquire a drug to use in lethal injections when it became clear it could no longer use propofol.

“We found that there was a compounding pharmacy that was willing to [provide the drugs], and that’s what moved us forward to change the protocol accordingly.”

Lombardi did not confirm or dispute the identity of the pharmacy, reported to be located in Oklahoma and only now seeking a license in Missouri. He did confirm that the drugs are paid for in cash, something that he says has been true since the administration of Governor John Ashcroft.

Lombardi says all those involved in the execution protocol who must be paid are paid in cash. He says that is because those participants have made clear that they would not be involved if they were paid any other way. He says it was part of maintaining anonymity for those participants.

Lombardi tells the Committee that to pay those individuals in any other way would be “the de-factor abolishment of the death penalty.”

Listen to the testimony of Corrections Department Director George Lombardi, 28:30

His testimony was challenged by Attorney Joe Luby with the Death Penalty Litigation Center, who says Lombardi is “abusing” the state statute that requires the identities of members of an execution team to be kept secret.

“The same statute defines ‘execution team’ very narrowly,” says Luby. He quotes, “The execution team those persons who administer lethal chemicals and those persons such as medical personnel who provide direct support for the administration of lethal chemicals.”

That shouldn’t include the pharmacy, says Luby, who says then that the pharmacy’s identity should not be kept secret and it should therefore not be paid in cash.

Luby also accuses Corrections of moving too quickly in carrying out executions.

“It is absolutely unacceptable for the state to execute prisoners before the courts can resolve their claims. That has been the case with the last three prisoners who were executed in this state. This is a uniquely Missourian pattern of behavior.”

A federal judge has also been critical of the timing o the execution of Allen Nicklasson in December.

Assistant Missouri Attorney General David Hansen tells the Committee Missouri has acted within the law.

“The law is clear that the pendency of litigation is an insufficient reason to stop an execution,” Hansen says. “On January 29th, the date of [Herbert] Smulls’ execution, the State of Missouri directly went to the United States Supreme Court and asked if the execution should happen. The Court said no, the execution should not be stopped. They said that three different times on that day.”

The Chairman of the Committee, Representative Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City), says he is satisfied that Missouri has not executed while a stay was in place that should have halted it.

As for what action, if any, he thinks the legislature needs to take based on what it learned on Monday, Barnes says, “I don’t think there’s any chance of any moratorium being put in place. I also think … the legislature out to take a close look at the procedures, especially how pharmaceuticals are procured.”

Barnes refers to legislation offered by Representative John Rizzo (D-Kansas City), that proposes a moratorium while an 11-member panel reviews death penalty and execution protocol. His legislation (HB 1409) has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee but a hearing has not been scheduled.

“I really feel like this process is being spitballed together in an aspect to carry out the law,” says Rizzo, “but in the process maybe does violate law.”

Rizzo says the legislature needs to have some oversight into the execution process.

“The policy invariably forces illegalities,” Rizzo says he learned on Monday. “The Director (of corrections) has to carry out an execution, but there are no pharmaceuticals available to do that. Then he has to go above and beyond to actually go to a pharmacy that’s not regulated by the State of Missouri that, in essence, violates FDA regulations.”

Barnes noted legislation filed last week by Representative Eric Burlison (R-Springfield), HB 1737, that would make the execution protocol subject to review by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules as being one avenue for increasing oversight. That bill has not been referred to a committee. Rizzo is one of its co-signers.

Missouri is scheduled to carry out another execution on February 26; that of Michael Taylor, who pled guilty in the abduction and murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison girl in Kansas City 1989.

Governor Nixon denies clemency to man scheduled for execution early Wednesday

January 28, 2014 By Mike Lear

Governor Jay Nixon has denied a clemency petition for 56-year-old Herbert Smulls, scheduled to be executed early tomorrow by lethal injection for the 1991 murder of a St. Louis County jewelry store owner.

Herbert Smulls (courtesy, Missouri Department of Corrections)

In a statement, Nixon says he has reviewed Smulls’ case, saying the decision is not one he takes lightly.

Herbert Smulls shot and killed Stephen Honickman and seriously wounded Florence Honickman in a cold-blooded and deliberate manner during a robbery of their jewelry business in Chesterfield,” says Nixon. “A career criminal, Smulls was apprehended by law enforcement shortly after the murder with stolen jewelry still in the car.

“These crimes were brutal, and the jury that convicted Smulls determined that he deserved the most severe punishment under Missouri law. Both the conviction and the death sentence of Herbert Smulls have held up under extensive judicial review by the state and federal courts. My decision on clemency upholds the action by the jury and the decisions by the courts.

“I ask that Missourians remember Stephen Honickman at this time, and keep Florence Honickman and the family and friends of the Honickmans in their thoughts and prayers.”

Smulls is scheduled to be executed just after midnight Wednesday morning at the Eastern Reception and Diagnostic Correctional Center at Bonne Terre, Missouri.

Execution protocol commission pushed (AUDIO)

January 28, 2014 By Bob Priddy

The legislature is being asked to set up a special commission to establish the right way to execute prisoners.

Senate Minority Leader Jolie Justus says, “If any governmental action other than the death penalty was carried out with this kind of secrecy, members of this General Assembly would be lining up to call for investigations and transparency; budgets would be hijacked and hearings would be held.”

Justus says the Corrections Department’s secrecy about the execution drug it uses, the source of it, and the questionable legality of its use are behind her call for formation of an eleven-member Capital sentencing Procedures and Protocols Commission.

Her bill has been filed a few hours before the scheduled execution of Herbert Smulls. “From the little information the public has gathered, the Department of Corrections will execute Mr. Smulls using expired drugs that were illegally compunded out of state, paid for in cash and transported to Missouri in violation of state and federal laws. If there is more to this story, we will not know because state officials refuse to release this information to the public,” she says.

Justus says nobody, even death penalty supporters, should allow Missouri government to execute inmates on behalf of the people of the state through secret, cash transactions for illegal drugs.

Her commission would be made up of the Attorney General, a current or retired public defender, a sitting or retired prosecutor, an active member of the Missouri Bar, two physicians, two pharmacists, two judges, and a person appointed by the governor.

The legislature has repeatedly refused to consider any legislation changing death penalty procedures. Justus admits she does not know if her proposal stands a chance in this year’s session.

AUDIO: Justus introduces bill 2:13

Execution moratorium to be sought (AUDIO)

January 27, 2014 By Bob Priddy

Two days before the state’s next scheduled execution, a call for an execution moratorium will be filed in the state senate.

Lawyers are hoping to get a stay of execution for Herbert Smulls, who is scheduled to die early Wednesday morning for murdering a man in 1991. His lawyer has gone to federal court, asking for a sixty-day delay, arguing the drug used to kill Smulls could cause him to suffer.

Controversy about the drug, the origin of it, and the safety of it leads Senator Jolie Justus to propose an indefinite moratorium while a commission studies the execution protocol. “I’m not saying this man should not be executed. I’m saying we need at least sixty days to get this sorted out so the people of the state of Missouri, the legislature, everybody involved in this process can fully understand how we are executing people…whether it is legal, moral and ethical because right now we don’t know the answers because they won’t even give us access to the information,” she says.

Although she says “sixty days,” her resolution has no definite date for completing the study.

Moratorium efforts have failed in the legislature in recent years and Justus says she has no assurances this proposal will succeed, either. But she says the people of Missouri deserve to hear the conversation about the how the state extracts its ultimate penalty.

AUDIO: Justus & Sen. Schaaf in Senate (edited) 5:59

Supreme Court sets execution date for Michael Taylor

January 24, 2014 By Mike Lear

The state Supreme Court has set an execution date for Michael Taylor, one of two men who pleaded guilty to the 1989 murder of a 15-year-old girl. The Court has ordered that he be executed February 26.

Michael Taylor (courtesy; Missouri Department of Corrections)

Taylor and Roderick Nunley both admitted to abducting Ann Harrison from the driveway of her Kansas City home where she was waiting to go to school. Taylor had raped the girl with Nunley’s help in the basement of Nunley’s mother’s home before fatally stabbing her and abandoning her body in the trunk of a car.

Taylor turns 47 January 30.

Nunley is also sentenced to death. The Court in December ordered attorneys for Nunley, Taylor and two other condemned men, Jeffrey Ferguson and David Barnett, to present their arguments why it should not set dates for their executions. Taylor is the first of those four to have such a date set. The Corrections Department is set to carry out its next execution Wednesday. Herbert Smulls is 56 and has been on death row for 21 years. He was sentenced to death in 1991 for the fatal shooting of Stephen Honickman, a St. Louis County jewelry store owner.Taylor was to have been executed February 1, 2006, but it was halted while the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of lethal injection. The Court denied his appeal in 2008.

See the execution order from the Missouri Supreme Court (pdf)

Senator: Corrections secrecy “baloney” (AUDIO)

January 23, 2014 By Bob Priddy

A state Senator is pushing the Corrections Department to reveal whether an Oklahoma pharmacy that reportedly makes Missouri’s execution drug is part of the company hired to keep other inmates healthy.

St. Joseph Senator Rob Schaaf is a doctor who supported executions until Governor Carnahan pardoned a condemned inmate because the Pope asked him to. Schaaf says that illustrates the arbitrariness of the death penalty.

He’s been told the company providing healthcare to prison inmates, Corizon Correctional Healthcare, owns the Oklahoma pharmacy that provided the drug that killed the last two inmates executed in Missouri. “I just don’t think the same company that takes care or prisoners ought to be engaged in any way helping execute any of ’em,” he says.

The Corrections Department refuses to identify the pharmacy, saying state law protects the identity of the execution team. Schaaf calls that position “baloney,” saying that it makes about as much sense as saying the company that provided the gurney or the company providing the light bulb in the execution chamber is part of the team. “It’s ridiculous,” he says.

When Schaaf quizzed the state budget director and a department official of the corrections department, they said they would consult with department officials and get back to him. He says that’s a non-answer.

The next scheduled execution is less than a week away. Inmate Herbert Smulls is to die by lethal injection next Tuesday night., He committed a murder in 1991.

Sen. Schaaf quizzes state budget director Linda Luebbering and a corrections official: AUDIO: 3:45

Interview with Sen. Schaaf: 1prisdrugB

Interview with Sen. Schaaf: