JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — U.S. Reps. Cori Bush and Emanuel Cleaver on Tuesday called on Gov. Mike Parson to stop Missouri's planned execution of Amber McLaughlin, set for Jan. 3.
The two Missouri Democrats said the jury that heard Amber McLaughlin's case was never presented with "crucial mental health evidence" and criticized St. Louis County Judge Steven Goldman's decision in 2006 to impose the death penalty after the jury deadlocked on McLaughlin's sentence.
McLaughlin, now 49, raped and stabbed to death Beverly Guenther in 2003 in Earth City, and dumped her body near the Mississippi River. Guenther was 45.
McLaughlin would be the first transgender woman to be executed in the United States.
“As ordained ministers, we believe in accountability but also the sanctity of life, and do not think these tenets are mutually exclusive," Bush and Cleaver said. "We must therefore make investments in the social and economic well-being of all people. In order to do so, we must first acknowledge the moral depravity of executions.
"They are not about justice; they are about who has institutional power and who doesn’t," the two Congress members said. "We urge you to correct these injustices using every tool available, including the power to grant clemency."
McLaughlin's attorneys earlier this month asked Parson to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole. Seven retired Missouri judges also asked the Republican governor to call off the execution, saying “the trial judge made his own findings contrary to the will of the jury, which runs squarely against the fundamental principles of our justice system."
Death penalty opponents were set to drop off more than 5,000 signatures Tuesday at Parson's office opposing the execution.
In addition to Missouri, five other states — Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas — carried out at least one execution in 2022, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey both halted executions this year amid concerns over execution procedures. In Alabama, there had been two botched executions since September, and three since 2018.
Missouri executed two prisoners this year: Carman Deck, who killed James and Zelma Long in Jefferson County in 1996; and Kevin Johnson, who killed Kirkwood Police Sgt. William McEntee in 2005.
Since Parson took office in June 2018, five executions have taken place after the governor declined to grant clemency.
Kelli Jones, spokeswoman for Parson, did not respond to multiple inquiries this month on the status of Marcellus Williams, a death row inmate convicted of killing former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle in 1998.
Williams was set to die by lethal injection in 2017, but then-Gov. Eric Greitens halted the execution and appointed a panel of former judges to review whether Williams should be granted clemency amid new evidence showing Williams' DNA was not found on the knife used in the killing.
The judicial panel hasn't met since 2021 and has delivered recommendations to Parson, St. Louis Public Radio reported in August, citing one of the panel's members.
A Gallup poll conducted in October showed 55% support nationwide for the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, while 42% of respondents opposed it and 3% voiced no opinion.
Despite a majority in favor, support for capital punishment has declined since the 1990s, when 4 out of 5 Gallup respondents said they approved of the death penalty.
Efforts to do away with the death penalty in Missouri have failed — despite support from some Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature.
“I’m a conservative Republican. I am a devout Catholic. I’m extremely pro-life,” state Sen. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, said in 2016. “If I am going to be a defender of life, I have to be defending it on both ends of the spectrum.”
Legislation this year by state Rep. Tony Lovasco, R-O'Fallon, to abolish the death penalty failed to garner a committee hearing.
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