Missouri executes Roderick Nunley

Roderick Nunley

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) - Missouri executed Tuesday evening Roderick Nunley, 50, for the kidnapping, rape and fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Ann Harrison in 1989.

Nunley was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m., according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Nunlley becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Missouri and the 86th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1989; only Texas (528), Oklahoma (112), Virginia (110), and Florida (90) have executed more individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2, 1976.

Nunley becomes the 20th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1414th overall since the nation resumed executions on january 17, 1977.

Nunley was sentenced to death for the 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison in Kansas City. He was charged along with Michael Taylor, who was executed last year.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Tuesday denied a clemency request for Nunley, filed by death penalty opponents, asserting that racial bias played a role in the case because a prosecutor refused a plea deal that would have given Nunley life in prison without parole.

Nunley was black, as was Taylor, while the victim was white.

The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, denied several appeals from Nunley's attorney, including one claiming that the death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

Retired Kansas City detective Pete Edlund said the only thing cruel and unusual was how long Nunley and Taylor remained on death row.

"They just take forever to do the deed," Edlund told The Associated Press. "The delay in executing these 2 is just nuts because it didn't have anything to do with their guilt. It was legal mumbo jumbo nonsense."

"Despite openly admitting his guilt to the court, it has taken 25 years to get him to the execution chamber," Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement. "Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome."

According to police reports and court documents, Nunley and Taylor had been using cocaine the night of March 21, 1989, and then stole a car during the early morning hours of March 22.

They saw Ann Harrison standing in her driveway waiting on a school bus. When they pulled up to her, Taylor grabbed her, pulling her inside the car.

Nunley then drove to his mother’s house in Grandview, a suburb of Kansas City, where Harrison was taken blindfolded into the basement. He said in court that Taylor raped Harrison while he did nothing to prevent it, and that they both later agreed to kill her to prevent her from testifying against them in court.

Harrison was stabbed multiple times and left in the trunk of the stolen car to die. Both the car and her body were discovered three days later in a nearby neighborhood.

Nunley pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 1991, in the hopes of receiving a life sentence, but after a three-day sentencing hearing he was sentenced to death.

In 1994, Nunley filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, which was rejected. His attorneys had argued that he suffered from a “dependent personality disorder” and that his judgment was impaired due to his cocaine use when Harrison was murdered. They also accused the Jackson County prosecutor’s office of having a track record of racial discrimination when pursuing the death penalty in cases where the defendant was African American and the victim was white.

Late Friday, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected Nunley’s request to withdraw the execution warrant, and a motion on Monday to reconsider that decision was also rejected.

Meanwhile, Nunley’s attorney, Jennifer Herndon, has filed another appeal based on the state’s refusal to disclose where it gets its execution drug, although that maneuver failed to halt other executions carried out in Missouri this year.

The Marshall Project, which has put forth several articles critical of the death penalty, recently had an article that was critical of Herndon.

Sources: KCUR.org, Marshall Griffin, AP, DPN, Rick Halperin, Sept. 1, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Arizona prosecutors seek death penalty a second time for 2 inmates

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson.

After Nearly 30 Years and a Supreme Court Reversal: Assessing the Likely Result of Richard Glossip’s Oklahoma Retrial

DPN asked Grok for a legal analysis of Richard Glossip’s upcoming murder retrial and its likely disposition. Most likely outcome of Richard Glossip’s retrial: acquittal or a hung jury leading to dismissal or no further prosecution, rather than a conviction for first-degree murder. A conviction remains possible but is the less probable result given the severely damaged core evidence and the state’s own prior admissions. Death is off the table. Case background

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issues three death penalty reprieves

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued execution reprieves for three death row inmates on Friday. In a statement, DeWine said he issued reprieves for Keith LaMar, Scott Group, and Davel Chinn, all of whom were set to be executed early next year. LaMar was scheduled to be executed on Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the deaths of five inmates during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings. His new execution date is Jan. 13, 2030. Watch the latest NBC4 headlines in the video player above.

Florida | Judge refuses to let convicted serial killer speak as she sentences him to death

A Florida judge denied a request from a convicted serial killer to speak in court as she sentenced him to death on Tuesday. A jury convicted Demorris Hunter, 60, of 1st-degree murder and theft in the death of Theresa Ann Green, 38, who was strangled and left in the trunk of her car. “Demorris Andy Hunter, you have not only forfeited your right to dwell among us as a free man, but by your actions and under the law of the State of Florida, you have forfeited your right to live, as well,” Judge Lisa Munyon said as she handed down the sentence Tuesday morning.

Doctors warn against Tennessee death penalty protocols

Tennessee’s execution protocol is medically unethical and should be revamped before further executions occur, nearly 40 health care professionals said in a letter to Gov. Bill Lee. Like the coalition of faith leaders who asked for a moratorium on executions earlier this month, the physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals who signed the July 28 letter said they were motivated to speak up after the gruesome and botched execution of Tony Carruthers in May. Carruthers spent 90 minutes bleeding and writhing in agony as an attending physician made repeated unsuccessful attempts to insert an IV into the inmate’s chest after being unable to find useable veins in the arms, legs, and feet. Lee granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve after the ordeal.

Death row inmate sues Tennessee, claiming state denied private confession before execution

A Tennessee death row inmate and his chosen spiritual advisor have filed a federal lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Correction, alleging state prison policies violate their religious rights by preventing a private confession before execution. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, does not challenge Tennessee’s authority to carry out executions. Instead, it asks whether condemned inmates have a constitutional and federally protected right to privately practice their faith before the state carries out a death sentence. John Michael Bane has spent decades on Tennessee’s death row after a Shelby County jury convicted him of 1st-degree felony murder in the 1988 robbery and killing of 60-year-old Royce Frazier.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

Iran executes 20-year-old protester as fears grow for other detainees

Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old protester Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday morning, according to information obtained by Iran International, amid concerns that several other detainees could also face execution. Kheirkhah was arrested during the January protests and sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court on charges including moharebeh , or “waging war against God.” He was transferred to solitary confinement on Wednesday ahead of the execution. His family gathered outside Shahroud prison on Friday night in an attempt to stop the sentence from being carried out. According to information received by Iran International, Kheirkhah told his family in a final conversation: “Don’t let them forget me. We stood up for the liberation of our homeland. Don’t let the path we chose be silenced.”

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog