by Missouri governor Michael Parson on Monday denied a last-ditch clemency request from Brian Dorsey, 52, a death row inmate scheduled to be executed on Tuesday for a 2006 double murder.
“The pain that Dorsey has caused others can never be remedied, but by sentencing Dorsey in accordance with Missouri law and the Court’s order will deliver justice and provide closure,” Governor Parson, a former sheriff who is not deterred has been implemented since he took office. 2018, in a statement.
Missouri inmate attorneys criticized the decision in a statement, citing Dorsey’s commitment to rehabilitation and what they see as his flawed legal representation.
“Governor Parson has chosen to ignore the wealth of information before him showing that Brian Dorsey deserves exceptional leniency,” attorney Megan Crane said Monday. “Brian has spent every day of his time in prison trying to make amends for his crime, and dozens of corrections officers have affirmed his remorse, change and commitment to service. Brian’s unprecedented support, and his unwavering testimony of redemption, are precisely the circumstances upon which mercy is intended. Allowing Brian to be executed despite this fact is appalling.”
Some family members of the victims, Dorsey’s cousin Sarah and her husband Ben Bonnie are supporting the death sentence, while others are arguing against it.
“All these years of pain and suffering we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,” one group of relatives said in a statement earlier this year. “Brian will get the justice that Sarah and Ben have long deserved.”
The clemency decision comes despite Dorsey’s appeals in state and federal court, and a group of more than 70 current and former corrections officers recommending that the man’s death sentence be downgraded.
“In general, we believe in the use of capital punishment,” the governor’s officials previously wrote. “But we agree that the death penalty is not the appropriate punishment for Brian Dorsey.”
Dorsey was sentenced to death for the killing on December 23, 2006, a sentence that was upheld on appeals to courts at the state, federal and US Supreme Court levels.
The two invited Dorsey to their home for the night in New Bloomfield, Missouri, during a period when Dorsey feared a group of drug dealers was after him to collect a debt, according to the Missouri Attorney General’s Office.
Prosecutors also allege that after Dorsey killed them, he sexually assaulted Sarah and bleached her, although these allegations were not fully considered in court because Dorsey pleaded guilty.
Dorsey turned himself in to police and is not appealing his innocence; he contends that he received constitutionally flawed legal representation, which violated his 6th Amendment right to counsel.
According to lawyers, Dorsey’s original attorneys failed to turn over key pieces of evidence, which could have resulted in paying a flat fee of $12,000 each to defend him, a practice legal observers say could complicate capital cases. encourage, which can last years.
The Missouri man’s original attorneys did not disclose Mr. Dorsey’s claim that he was in a state of drug-induced psychosis at the time of the murders and did not investigate or present his past struggles with mental health, including a diagnosis of major depression and seek inpatient treatment. , according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
They also negotiated a guilty plea deal that had no guarantees regarding the sentence Dorsey would receive.
The practice of paying flat fees in capital cases has long been criticized by the American Bar Association for its ability to “discourage lawyers from doing more than the minimum necessary.”
In a letter to the governor in March, Michael Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court justice who once upheld Dorsey’s death sentence, said these were “rare cases where we who sit in judgment of a man convicted of wrongful capital murder” and added that everything was undoubtedly affected by the flat fee arrangement, which Missouri has since discontinued.
When contactedThe Independent, His original attorneys, Chris Slusher and Scott McBride, declined to comment.
Since his incarceration, according to corrections staff, Dorsey has not committed any infractions and is a trusted barber for inmates and prison staff at times.
Over the weekend, Dorsey’s attorneys and the state reached a settlement on a separate issue, whether protocols were in place to prevent unnecessary suffering if executioners had difficulty placing an IV line to deliver the execution drugs. In some cases, the execution team resorts to a “cut down,” which makes an incision that can be deep in the skin, to find a proper vein.
The death row inmate argued that because he is obese, has diabetes, and is a former intravenous drug user, he could more likely undergo amputation, a painful process his attorneys compared to “surgery without anesthesia.”
Barring a last-minute postponement, Dorsey is scheduled to be executed at 6pm local time at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center prison in Missouri by lethal injection.
Missouri kills more people than almost every other US state. The state has executed 97 people since 1976, trailing only Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia and Florida, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Last year, it was one of the five states to complete, killing four people.
The Independent and the non-profit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) has launched a joint campaign to end the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to its Declaration of Business Leaders Against the Death Penalty – with The Independent the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.
