The state execution took place at 6 p.m. in Bonne Terre at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correction Center.
Protests occurred across Missouri throughout the day, including a vigil at the Boone County Courthouse in the hour before the execution. The event affirmed Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty's respect for life, said Jeff Stack of MADP's Columbia chapter and the Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Attempts to prevent Johnson's execution failed in August when the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against altering the sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday likewise declined to halt the execution.
"The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice (Brett) Kavanaugh and by him referred to the Court is denied," stated a memo from the U.S. Supreme Court issued Tuesday afternoon. "The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied."
Johnson was found guilty in the 1994 deaths of Columbia Casey's General Store employees Mary Bratcher, Mabel Scruggs and Fred Jones.
Multiple appeals and attempts to prevent previous execution orders preceded Tuesday's execution.
Gov. Mike Parson issued a statement Monday outlining the state's intention to move forward with the execution. Parson said the state would proceed with Johnson's execution, denying clemency despite requests from the pope, members of Congress and activist groups.
“The state is prepared to deliver justice and carry out the lawful sentence Mr. Johnson received in accordance with the Missouri Supreme Court's order,” Parson, a Republican, said Monday.
Groups and individuals in support of Johnson did not advocate for him to be freed. They wanted the sentence commuted to life in prison since they believe Johnson was intellectually disabled and thus was exempt from the death penalty per a 2002 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court at that time held that people with an intellectual/development disability cannot be executed, but left it up to states to decide how to define those in the court system with such a disability.
The Missouri Supreme Court in August denied claims that Johnson was intellectually or developmentally disabled and that a drug used in the execution could cause a painful seizure after administration.
Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty maintained both claims throughout its attempts to prevent Johnson's death.
Slightly more than a dozen demonstrators gathered in Columbia on Tuesday, holding signs that included the phrases "Stop Executions" and "Execute Justice, Not People."
"(Parson) wants our state to continue being an agent for death, even for individuals who are intellectually disabled," Stack said. "He sees revenge as justice."
Multiple IQ tests for Johnson, 61, indicated sub-average intelligence.
Johnson's attorney, Kansas City Public Defender Jeremy Weiss, in August said Johnson “meets all statutory and clinical definitions” of intellectual disability. The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits executing intellectually disabled people.
It was Johnson's pre-planning of the Casey's robbery that led to the employee deaths, and his actions after the crime indicated Johnson had intelligence, the state Supreme Court ruled in August.
Johnson underwent surgery in 2008 to remove a brain tumor. Most, but not all, of the tumor was removed. Scar tissue and the rest of the tumor remain, which Johnson said led to severe seizures after his surgery and an epilepsy diagnosis.
Claims by an expert witness for Johnson failed to link Pentobarbital, a drug used in executions, to inducing seizures, the court ruled, adding Johnson also did not provide a feasible or easily implemented execution alternative to lethal injection.
Wiley Miller, co-chair of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said at an August demonstration for clemency at the Boone County Courthouse that Missouri's death penalty "cheapens life."
"We have to look out for each other," Miller said at the time. "We should never give up. We should always try to salvage our fellow human beings."
Former Democratic Missouri Gov. Bob Holden issued an editorial this past week calling on Parson to stay the execution.
"A review of pertinent documents has prompted me to concur with advocates that Johnson is most certainly intellectually and developmentally disabled, and thus constitutionally barred from execution by the Atkins v. Virginia U.S. Supreme Court decision," he wrote.
Missouri, in 2001, adopted a law that banned executions of individuals with an intellectual/developmental disability. This was a year before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. This law requires individuals be diagnosed with the disability before they turn 18.
While tests indicated sub-average intelligence, an expert witness for the state "believed Johnson was (exaggerating his disability) during his 2004 IQ test, and the fact that Johnson’s scores decline markedly after the murders supports that conclusion," the state Supreme Court wrote in its opinion.
The unanimous opinion was issued without signature by any one judge.
"Nothing excuses what Johnson did. But if our state is to be guided by the rule of law, we must temper our understandable anger with reason and compassion for the most vulnerable among us, including Ernest Johnson," Holden wrote in his editorial.
Johnson's behavior since being incarcerated also was an indicator that clemency to a life sentence was warranted, Stack said.
"He is probably getting treated better now than he was in his lifetime. He has some security and some level of constancy," he said before Johnson's death. "(His execution) is kind of a cruel indictment of our society."
Johnson becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Missouri and the 91st overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1989.
Johnson becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death in the USA this year and the 1,536th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Source: Columbia Daily Tribune, Staff; Rick Halperin, October 5, 2021
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde