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State argues for lifting of impediments to execution of Michael Taylor’s accomplice

March 10, 2014 By Mike Lear

In the days after Michael Taylor was executed for his part in the murder of a 15-year-old girl in 1989, the state is working to lift barriers to the execution of his accomplice.

Roderick Nunley (courtesy; Missouri Department of Corrections)

Roderick Nunley (courtesy; Missouri Department of Corrections)

Taylor and Roderick Nunley participated in the abduction of Ann Harrison and her subsequent rape and murder. Nunley was also sentenced to death and in December his attorneys were asked to give the Supreme Court reason why it shouldn’t set his execution date.

Their primary argument is that he has had a stay in place for more than 3 years in the U.S. District Court in Western Missouri, stemming from an appeal of his death sentence. The Attorney General’s Office has challenged that stay.

Nunley’s attorneys have also asked the court to consider his pending request for the right to appeal a rejected habeas corpus petition, and his role as a plaintiff in a pending court challenge to Missouri’s execution protocol. The four men executed since November were also plaintiffs in that case.

Nunley’s attorneys also maintain that the way those executions were carried out violated state and federal law.

Missouri’s next scheduled lethal injection is that of Jeffrey Ferguson on March 26. Like Nunley and Taylor, Ferguson was sentenced to death for a 1989 murder; that of 17-year-old Kelli Hall in St. Louis County.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Ann Harrison, execution, Jeffrey Ferguson, lethal injection, Michael Taylor, Roderick Nunley

Attorney General statement on execution of Michael Taylor

February 26, 2014 By Mike Lear

Upon the completion of the execution of Michael Taylor, Attorney General Chris Koster released this statement:

“Over 9,100 days have passed since the morning Michael Taylor and Roderick Nunley kidnapped 15-year-old Ann Harrison as she waited for her school bus. Taylor and Nunley raped her, repeatedly stabbed her, and left her to die in the trunk of a stolen car. Taylor spent 20 years attempting to convince the courts to overturn his death sentence – five years longer than Ann Harrison lived on this earth. Please take a moment to keep Ann and her family in your thoughts and prayers.”

See more on the execution of Michael Taylor

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Chris Koster, Death Penalty, lethal injection, Michael Taylor

Agency reports Michael Taylor has been executed

February 26, 2014 By Mike Lear

The Department of Public Safety has issued a statement saying that the execution by lethal injection of 47-year-old Michael Taylor has been carried out. Taylor was pronounced dead at 12:10 a.m. at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre.

Michael Taylor (courtesy; Missouri Department of Corrections)

Michael Taylor (courtesy; Missouri Department of Corrections)

Taylor was one of two men that pleaded guilty to the 1989 murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison of Kansas City. He and Roderick Nunley both admitted to abducting Harrison from the driveway of her home where she was waiting for a school bus. 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.

Nunley is also sentenced to death.

Taylor had been set to be executed once before, in 2006, but that was stopped with just hours to go.

See Bob Priddy’s story from Bonne Terre, with audio

Filed Under: News Tagged With: execution, lethal injection, Michael Taylor

State hopes to execute Michael Taylor (AUDIO)

February 25, 2014 By [email protected]

Missouri’s fourth execution in a little more than three months is scheduled for tonight. 

Michael Taylor’s 15 year old victim, Ann Harrison, would have celebrated her 40th birthday last Saturday. But Taylor and another man facing execution kidnapped her while she waited for a Kansas City bus, raped her, and stabbed her about forty times, and left her body in the trunk of a car.

Taylor’s lawyers are hoping to block the execution with a flurry of appeals, many targeting the Corrections Department’s secrecy about how it is getting the drug it hopes to use tonight.  Corrections Director George Lombardi says the supplier of the drug is a secret, by law, and steps are taken to keep it that way.  “That process has been the same since the Ashcroft administration,” he tells the Senate Appropriations Committee.  The department paid the source of the pentobarbital used in the most recent execution $8,000, cash.  An Oklahoma pharmacy that some reports say compounded the drug used in executions has never admitted being the supplier. But it says it is not the source of the drug the department plans to use tonight. The department says it has found a new, in-state, supplier.

State senator Dan Brown, a veterinarian, doubts pentobarbital causes any pain, as critics claim. He says it was the main anesthetic used for surgery when he began his career forty years ago.  Brown says he uses it to put animals to sleep–that no pet owner wants to see a pet suffer.  And he says they don’t. “This is an anesthetic overdose for all intent and purpose,” he says. 

Co-defendant Roderick Nunley remains under a death sentence.  The Missouri Supreme Court has not set an execution date for him.

AUDIO: Lombardi & Senate committee 19:23

Filed Under: Crime / Courts, News

Despite court challenges, state prepared to execute Michael Taylor next week (VIDEO)

February 20, 2014 By Jessica Machetta

The Missouri Department of Corrections is prepared to carry out the execution of Michael Taylor on Feb. 26 pursuant to the warrant issued by the Missouri Supreme Court. That’s the statement from the Department itself, and backed by the Governor.

nixA compounding pharmacy in Oklahoma that has supplied the pentobarbital used in the last three executions was ordered by a court in that state to cease sales to Missouri for the purpose of executions.

At that time, the Attorney General’s Office told Missourinet that “The Attorney General’s Office is not involved in the Oklahoma litigation. The Missouri Supreme Court has not withdrawn the warrant for Mr. Taylor’s execution.”

According to the Kansas City Star, Missouri officials now say they’ve arranged with an unidentified pharmacy to provide the lethal injection chemical for use in Taylor’s execution.

Meanwhile, Taylor’s attorneys have asked a federal judge to stay the execution, saying the state has no lawful way to carry out the lethal injection.

“We work very hard to make sure that the ultimate penalty in the state of Missouri is carried out in as humane as way as possible,” Gov. Jay Nixon said. “And we’re prepared for the execution next week. I understand others can have opinions and thoughts … my thoughts are with the review process obviously for potential commutation down the stretch but more importantly that that for the victims that continue to miss their loved ones from heinous crimes like this. We are prepared to move forward to complete this punishment in a timely fashion.”

Taylor is on Death Row for the 1989 killing of 15-year-old Ann Harrison. He and Roderick Nunley both pleaded guilty to kidnapping Harrison as she waited for the school bus, raping her, stabbing her, and leaving her in the trunk of stolen car they later abandoned, where she succumbed to her injuries.

The Supreme Court has not re-issued a death warrant for Nunley at this time.

Filed Under: Crime / Courts, News Tagged With: Ann Harrison, capital punishment, death row, Governor Jay Nixon, Michael Taylor

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)

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)

Filed Under: Crime / Courts, News Tagged With: Bonne Terre, David Barnett, Death Penalty, Jeffrey Ferguson, lethal injection, Michael Taylor, Roderick Nunley

US Supreme Court denies convicted killer Michael Taylor’s appeal

April 21, 2008 By admin Leave a Comment

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the lethal injection appeal of convicted murderer and death row inmate Michael Taylor of Kansas City. The decision comes on the heels of last week’s ruling in a Kentucky death penalty case in which the High Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection.

Taylor was one of two men sentenced to be executed for the 1989 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison who was nabbed while waiting for a school bus near her Kansas City home. Taylor had been scheduled to die in February of 2006 but the execution was stopped because of challenges to Missouri’s lethal injection procedures.

Missouri has not conducted an execution since Marlin Gray was put to death in October of 2005.

 

Filed Under: Crime / Courts Tagged With: Capitol Punishment, Death Penalty, death row, Kansas City

Michael Brown’s mother to speak at DNC

July 26, 2016 By Missourinet Contributor

By Jason Taylor, Missourinet

The mother of Michael Brown Jr., an 18-year-old man killed in 2014 by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, will speak Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.  The disputed circumstances of the shooting heightened existing tensions in the mostly black community, leading to protests and civil unrest as well as extensive national attention.

St. Louis Alderman Antonio French

St. Louis Alderman Antonio French

St. Louis Alderman Antonio French thinks Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, will address ways to prevent the killings.

“She is hoping that we can change the laws, change the system, rebuild trust, and change this existence right now where too many are being killed, unnecessarily many believe, by police officers,” says French.

He’s also expecting McSpadden to address the root cause of her son’s death.

“I think these mothers are really addressing a larger issue which is just gun violence” says French.  “There’s just too many killings in our country.  There has to be a national priority to reduce this violence.  I’m very glad that they’re going to be here to discuss that important issue.”

McSpadden will join other mothers Tuesday night to speak about their sons and daughters who died as a result of police actions.  The convention’s theme of the day is “Mothers of the Movement”.

French is a delegate to the convention.  He is supporting presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton.

French gained national recognition for his work covering the Ferguson disruptions through social media, and is also credited for helping to curb the unrest.  He is a second term Alderman representing the 21st Ward in St. Louis.

Filed Under: Elections, News

The Cardinals Caravan schedule for Missouri. Michael Wacha, Matt Adams, Trevor Rosenthal highlight Missouri stops

January 7, 2015 By Bill Pollock

St. Louis Cardinals Kolten Wong runs to home plate after hitting a walkoff home run in the ninth inning to defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-4 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on July 8, 2014. UPI/Bill Greenblatt

Kolten Wong runs to home plate after hitting a walkoff home run to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-4 at Busch Stadium on July 8, 2014. Wong and Carlos Martinez will make the Tennessee swing of the Cardinals Caravan.  UPI/Bill Greenblatt

2015 Cardinals Caravan Schedule

CARAVAN 1

Players: Matt Adams, Seth Maness, Kevin Siegrest
Cardinals Alumni: Jason Simontacchi, Kerry Robinson
Emcee: John Rooney

Fri, Jan 16 Springfield, MO Hammons Field 12:15 PM 417-863-0395
Fri, Jan 16 Springfield, MO JQH Arena* 7:45 PM 417-863-0395
Sat, Jan 17 Joplin, MO Taylor Performing Arts Center (MSSU) 12:00 PM 417-625-9777
Sat, Jan 17 Rolla, MO Rolla High School Gymnasium 5:30 PM 573-364-2525
*Please note – Springfield, MO evening program is autographs only – requires ticket to Bass Pro Tournament of Champions event

CARAVAN 2

Players: Trevor Rosenthal, Sam Freeman, Tim Cooney, Charlie Tilson
Cardinals Alumni: Andy Benes
Emcee: Rick Horton

Fri, Jan 16 Moberly, MO Moberly Municipal Auditorium 12:00 PM 660-263-1600
Fri, Jan 16 Jefferson City, MO Missouri Farm Bureau Center 6:30 PM 573-455-1099
Sat, Jan 17 Sedalia, MO Fred E. Davis Multipurpose Complex @ State Fair Community College 11:30 AM 660-826-1050
Sat, Jan 17 Columbia, MO Missouri vs. Tennessee, Mizzou Arena* 3:30 PM 800-228-7297
*Please note – Columbia, MO is autographs only – requires ticket to Mizzou/Tennessee game at 5:00 PM

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: Baseball, Sports, St. Louis Cardinals

Changed or not, execution looms for Missouri inmate Leon Taylor

November 14, 2014 By Mike Lear

The attorney for the man Missouri is scheduled to execute next week told Missourinet he is a changed man, but one of the men that prosecuted him remains confident the death sentence is just.

Leon Taylor as he appeared in the 2012 documentary Potosi:  God in Death Row.  Taylor is scheduled to be executed early Wednesday morning at the prison in Bonne Terre.

Leon Taylor as he appeared in the 2012 documentary Potosi: God in Death Row. Taylor is scheduled to be executed early Wednesday morning at the prison in Bonne Terre.

It’s been more than 20 years since Leon Taylor fatally shot Robert Newton, the attendant of an Independence service station that Taylor had just robbed. After killing Newton, Taylor attempted to shoot Taylor’s then-eight-year-old stepdaughter as well, but the gun didn’t fire, and he left her with Newton’s body.

Taylor is sentenced to die by lethal injection early Wednesday morning at the prison at Bonne Terre.

Attorney Elizabeth Unger Carlyle has represented Taylor since 2003. She said he is a “dramatically” different man from the one he was on April 14, 1994.

“He has become a real force for good and a force for God at the Potosi Correctional Center,” said Carlyle.

She said a petition for clemency transmitted this week to the office of Governor Jay Nixon includes statements from people inside and outside the prison about his influence, and letters from pastoral groups and current and former legislators urging the governor to commute his sentence.

The Governor’s office’s policy is to not offer comment on pending applications for clemency, and Nixon has only granted clemency one in his six years as governor.

Carlyle knows the governor’s track record regarding clemency, which includes denying it for men executed since November of last year.

She believes the one time Nixon granted clemency, in the case of Richard Clay who also committed a murder in Missouri in 1994, he based that decision on a number of factors, “including the activities of the person in prison.”

Carlyle knows skepticism is common toward people sentenced to death who claim to find religion and change for the better, but she believes Taylor is legitimate.

“One of the things Leon does is he’s a songwriter and he writes and records his own praise songs,” said Carlyle. “I think if you listen to them you can see that they come from his heart and I think that’s where his heart is.”

Taylor wrote a letter of apology and a poem for Newton’s widow, Astrid Newton Martin. Martin said in the 2012 documentary Potosi: God in Death Row, that she has forgiven Taylor.

“It took me … I think 17, almost 18 years to finally realize I need to forgive and I did,” Martin said in the film. “I can honestly say I forgive him if he really means what he said in the letter.”

“You did some horrible stuff to me and for a long time I could not forgive you,” Martin said of Taylor, “especially knowing you were trying to hurt my little girl.”

Martin’s daughter, now nearly 30, has declined recent requests for media interviews. The film includes a recording of what she had to say in a 1995 radio interview.

“I have never had so many nightmares,” she said then. “The best thing in my life was destroyed. Now I too feel like dying … it’s lonely out here with no dad. It is dumb for the best, sweetest and kindest man and dad to be killed over a lousy $450. I think Leon Taylor should get the death penalty.”

Taylor’s relatives that were with him the night of the murder said he later said of the little girl that he, “should have choked the bitch.”

The attempt Taylor made to kill her is one of the “aggravating factors” Michael Hunt and the rest of the prosecution team presented when it asked for the death penalty.

“Reasons why this is different than any other case,” Hunt told Missourinet in describing aggravating factors. “Essentially what you want to have are … egregious factors why this [case] is different.”

Hunt is still with the Jackson County Prosecutor’s office. He said the case stuck with him.

“The one thing you don’t ever forget is that little girl,” he told Missourinet. “It’s just so horrendous to hear her version of standing there, holding her stepfather’s hand as he is shot and killed, as he is pleading for his life, and then after he has been shot in the head, to have her describe how he turns that gun on her and pulls that trigger … that’s a horrendous act and it’s a horrendous act for her to have to relive and tell the jury.”

Hunt said he respects the beliefs of those who, for varying reasons, don’t want to see Taylor executed next week.

“When you start down this path on our side there has to be a comfort level that this is the appropriate punishment, because there’s no way that I could sit there as the prosecutor and ask that jury to sentence him to death unless I was comfortable with it,” Hunt said. “I was then and I am now.”

Taylor has also declined recent interview requests, but he is featured in that documentary.  In it, he talked about growing up with an alcoholic mother and having to raise his brothers and sisters.

“The men who were supposed to be my role models, they weren’t. They were women beaters and alcoholics themselves, so that’s basically what I grew up around,” said Taylor.

At the time he reacted to the news that Missouri might soon resume carrying out executions, saying, “I’m not worried about that.”

Taylor continued, “If my number comes up during that time, I’m fine. I’m good. I’m ready.”

 

Filed Under: News

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