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Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

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On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

Missouri advocates call on Governor to grant clemency to death row inmate

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Demonstrators in a rally at the Missouri State Capitol called on Governor Mike Parson to overturn the scheduled execution of a man convicted of killing 2 people, whose death sentence had been overturned 3 previous times.

Carman Deck was convicted in 1998 for the killings of James and Zelma Long in De Soto 2 years earlier. He was sentenced to death, though the Missouri Supreme Court threw out the death sentence due to errors from Deck's trial lawyer.

Deck was then convicted a 2nd time, only for that conviction to be tossed out by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005. He was sentenced to death for the 3rd time in 2017, though a U.S. District Judge determined there was not enough "substantial" evidence in the case.

In October 2020, a 3-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the death penalty. Deck is scheduled to be executed on May 3 in Bonne Terre.

"This punitive, premeditated decision on death is not in line with our faith," Nimrod Chapel, Jr., the board chair for Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said. "It doesn't meet our moral core. And when we look at it legally, it doesn't make sense."

Advocates at the Capitol on Tuesday delivered petitions to the Governor's office calling for clemency for Deck. The Governor's Office did not return KRCG 13's request for comment.

One demonstrator said they plan to meet with Governor Parson's legal counsel later this week.

"I would want him to know that there are constitutional implications in moving forward with the death sentence in this case, and moving forward with the death penalty in Missouri in general," Luz Maria Henriquez, the executive director for ACLU Missouri said on Tuesday.

Representatives Tony Lovasco (R) and Richard Brown (D) both spoke at the rally, calling the death penalty a bipartisan issue.

Source: KRCG TV news, Staff, April 27, 2022


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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
Location: Missouri, USA
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