Missouri Senate committee votes to abolish death penalty

A coalition of Republicans and Democrats voted Tuesday to send a bill repealing Missouri's death penalty to the state Senate for debate.

The measure passed the Senate General Laws and Pensions Committee on a 4-3 vote with support from 2 Republicans and 2 Democrats. The measure will head to the full Senate, which has not debated a bill to repeal the death penalty in decades.

"The death penalty isn't going to change without discussion," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial. "It's important we keep discussion open and allow everyone to share their opinions in order to make a change."

The bill also had the support of the committee's chairman, Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph.

Also voting for the measure were the committee's 2 Democrats, Sen. Joe Keaveny of St. Louis and Sen. Jill Schupp of Creve Coeur. The other 3 Republicans on the committee - Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-Maryville, Sen. Bob Onder, R-St. Charles, and Sen. Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan - voted against repealing the death penalty.

Before the vote, the committee heard from Joshua Kezer, who served 16 years in a state prison after being wrongly convicted of the 1992 murder of a Southeast Missouri State University nursing student in Scott County.

Kezer was sentenced to prison for 1st-degree murder, but Kezer's DNA was submitted to the FBI and was found to not be a match. Kezer was released from prison in 2009.

"I'm the last one to advocate for the life of a serial killer, woman killer, or child killer," Kezer said. "But when we are talking about the death penalty we aren't just talking about serial killers, men killers, or race killers. We are just talking about killers. Unfortunately we are also talking about innocent men and women. And because we are talking about that, even though it might be a small percentage, we have to address the death penalty."

Witnesses from the Missouri Sheriff's Association and the Missouri Police Chiefs Association both said they were against the bill.

There are currently 46 prisoners awaiting execution on death row in Missouri. The state executed 16 people in 2014 and 2015, more than a 1/4 of all executions nationwide in that period. The state has put 86 people to death since 1989, when executions resumed after a 24-year hiatus.

The last time the Senate debated whether Missouri should have the death penalty was in April 1974. If the bill passes, Missouri will join Illinois, New York, Iowa, and 17 other states that that do not have a death penalty.

Wieland acknowledged his bill still has a long way to go to win passage in the Republican-dominated General Assembly.

Source: Columbia Daily Tribune, January 28 2016

- Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com - Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

Saudi Arabia executes two Bangladeshis over 'immoral act' inside mosque

Saudi Arabia has carried out the death penalty on two Bangladeshi nationals in Mecca. The country's Interior Ministry announced this in a statement on Wednesday. According to the report, they were sentenced over allegations of involvement in immoral acts inside a mosque in Mecca. The information was reported by Ajel News, citing the Saudi Interior Ministry's statement. The two Bangladeshis executed were a man and a woman, Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Sithi Akhter. The “immoral acts” referred to illicit heterosexual intercourse, not homosexual activity.

Florida | William Reaves set to be executed on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m.

With his execution date looming, convicted killer William Reaves will soon be moved from Raiford's Union Correctional Institution to a death watch cell in nearby Florida State Prison, a maximum-security complex also known as "The Rock." Reaves, 77, a former Gifford resident in Indian River County who’s been on death row for 38 years, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. His execution will fulfill a sentence of death imposed for the 1986 fatal shooting of Indian River County Sheriff’s Cpl. Richard “Raz” Raczkoski outside a Zippy Mart store on State Road 60 west of Vero Beach.

Florida | Former firefighter, police officer sentenced to death in Fort Pierce killing

Otto Lenke, a Sebastian resident and former Indian River County firefighter/paramedic, as well as a former Melbourne police officer, was convicted in May 2026 of first-degree murder with a firearm and first-degree arson for the February 2021 killing of Richard Benson, owner of Fast Frank’s Cycle Concepts in Fort Pierce. SEBASTIAN—A Nineteen Judicial Circuit judge on Tuesday sentenced former Indian River County firefighter and Melbourne police officer Otto Lenke of Sebastian to death for the 2021 killing of a Fort Pierce motorcycle shop owner.

Saudi Arabia executes woman, 'terrorists', 'indecent' couple, and juvenile offenders

Saudi Arabia carried out a series of executions in mid-October, including that of a woman convicted of killing her mother and attempting to kill her sister, alongside five men in the Eastern Province. Official statements described the five as terrorists; human rights groups described them as political prisoners sentenced under discretionary (ta’zir) penalties, one of whom was a child at the time of the alleged acts. The cases illustrate the kingdom’s continued use of the death penalty under Sharia, its stated commitment to public order and justice, and criticism from human rights organizations over the scope of capital punishment.

Saudi Arabia executes five on terrorism charges

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia executed five people Saturday on terrorism charges, the ministry of interior said, bringing the total number of death sentences carried out this year to 188, according to an AFP tally based on official statements. The five Saudi nationals were convicted of “joining a foreign terrorist organization," opening fire on security forces and “providing support” for “terrorist operations inside the kingdom." Their executions were carried out in the Eastern Province, home to most of Saudi Arabia’s Shia Muslim minority, which has long complained of marginalization in the Sunni-majority country.

Indiana Parole Board hears testimony on clemency for man scheduled for Nov. 5 execution

Jeffrey Weisheit set his house on fire in 2010, killing his girlfriend’s two young children he was watching. The Indiana Parole Board will now make a recommendation in the coming days to Governor Mike Braun on whether to grant clemency to condemned killer Jeffrey Weisheit. Jeffrey is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 5 for the 2010 murder of his girlfriend's 2 children in Vanderburgh County.

Christa Pike's Survival Wasn't a Miracle. That's What Should Scare Us.

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

Saudi Arabia | Execution caught on video

Public execution in Saudi Arabia (file photo) A Saudi newspaper has carried a film showing the beheading of a man convicted of raping a teenaged boy before murdering him in the heart of the desert. The rare and shocking 51-second film showed the executioner bringing down his sword on the defendant’s head, which was severed in just a split of second. The executioner, a tall man wearing traditional Saudi dishdasha (gown) and ghutra (head cover), then wiped blood off his sword with a piece of cloth after the beheading before walking away from the rapist’s headless body. Sharq newspaper, which published the film, did not say how it was shot as filming of executions in the conservative Gulf kingdom is banned. Newspapers said the unnamed defendant had been convicted of abducting the Saudi boy to a desolate desert area and raping him. He then forced him to lie on the sand and crushed him with his four-wheel car. Warning: Graphic Content ✔ RELATED VIDEO...

Florida executes William Reaves

Florida puts 77-year-old man to death for a deputy's killing in its 18th execution this year Florida carried out its 18th execution of the year on Tuesday under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ aggressive use of the death penalty in his final term. William Reaves, 77, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1986 shooting death of Indian River County Deputy Richard Raczkowski.

Christa Pike: 4 Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next. Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday. She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog