The Missouri Supreme Court has set a November execution date for Kevin Johnson, who killed a Kirkwood police sergeant 17 years ago.
Johnson is scheduled to die by injection Nov. 29 at the state prison in Bonne Terre. Johnson’s death warrant will be good for a 24-hour period only, beginning at 6 p.m. on that day.
Johnson, 36, was convicted by a St. Louis County jury of killing Kirkwood police Sgt. William McEntee. The Missouri Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it had issued the warrant of execution for Johnson.
McEntee was on patrol in the Meacham Park neighborhood in July 5, 2005, when he was gunned down on Alsobrook Street in Kirkwood. McEntee was 43 years old. He was the father of 3 and on the force nearly 20 years.
McEntee was talking to a 13-year-old boy about a fireworks disturbance when Johnson approached the passenger’s side of McEntee’s patrol car, fired several shots and walked away.
The wounded McEntee drove off but crashed about 200 feet down the street. With help from some neighbors, while others called 911, McEntee was able to get out of the car. He was on his hands and knees when Johnson walked up and shot him in the back of the head. In all, McEntee was hit 7 times.
Officials said Johnson, who was 19 years old, ambushed McEntee in anger because he felt police officers hadn’t done enough to help when his brother collapsed and died of a congenital heart condition earlier that day.
Johnson had 2 murder trials, the 1st ending in a hung jury. He testified at both trials and said he was in a trance-like state when he fired the gun.
At Johnson’s second trial, which ended in conviction in 2007, defense attorney Karen Kraft told the jury they should consider Johnson’s history of abuse and neglect as a child when considering a sentence.
Kraft noted that Johnson’s half-brother, Joseph “Bam Bam” Long, 12, had died earlier on July 5, 2005, the day McEntee was slain. She offered three “mitigating factors” under Missouri law — Johnson’s age, his lack of significant criminal history and the fact that he was under extreme emotional or mental distress at the time of the murder.
“The death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst,” Kraft said. “With all due respect to the McEntee family, this is not one of those cases.”
Then-St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch had urged jurors to ignore arguments about Johnson’s troubled upbringing.
“They want you to think that because he had a lousy childhood that he should not have to face the appropriate punishment,” McCulloch said at the trial. “At some point, he has to be held accountable for what he did. A death sentence is justice for McEntee.”
Johnson’s appeals through the years argued that he didn’t get a fair trial. Lawyers on appeal have focused on a variety of issues.
They argued that the shackles hidden under his clothes made a noise so the jury knew he was shackled. Appellate lawyers didn’t like that numerous police officers were allowed to gather in the courtroom and the hallway, arguing it sent a signal to jurors to convict Johnson. They argued that Johnson’s trial lawyers failed to call witnesses who would have testified that Johnson had “acute stress disorder” and lacked the ability to deliberate.
Courts have rejected those arguments.
Missouri carried out an execution earlier this year. Carman Deck, 56, was put to death in May for killing a couple in their home near De Soto in 1996.
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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
