Missouri Gov. rejects prison guards’ calls to stop execution of Brian Dorsey
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) denied clemency to Brian Dorsey, who faces execution on Tuesday for the 2006 murder of his cousin and her husband.
“Brian Dorsey punished his loving family for helping him in a time of need. His cousins invited him into their home where he was surrounded by family and friends, then gave him a place to stay. Dorsey repaid them with cruelty, inhumane violence, and murder,” Gov. Parson said in a press release on Monday.
“The pain Dorsey brought to others can never be rectified, but carrying out Dorsey’s sentence according to Missouri law and the Court’s order will deliver justice and provide closure,” Parson added.
The Hill reached out to Parson’s office for comment.
Dorsey, 52, was convicted and placed on death row in 2008 after pleading guilty to killing his cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband Ben Bonnie in central Missouri.
The governor’s decision to proceed with Dorsey’s injection comes after his legal team filed a clemency application, stressing Dorsey’s “extraordinary rehabilitation” behind bars, his apparent mental state on the night of the murders as well as inadequate legal representation at trial, according to reports from CNN.
The petition gathered over 150 signatories to letters urging Parson to commute Dorsey’s sentence to life without parole. According to The Kansas City Star, supporters included 72 corrections employees, five jurors, three Republican state representatives and former Missouri Supreme Court justice Michael Wolff, who originally upheld Dorsey’s death sentence in 2009.
Megan Crane, an attorney for Dorsey, said allowing him to be executed was devastating.
“Governor Parson has chosen to ignore the wealth of information before him showing that Brian Dorsey is uniquely deserving of mercy,” she said in a statement, reported by the Associated Press. “Brian has spent every day of his time in prison trying to make amends for his crime, and dozens of correctional officers have attested to his remorse, transformation, and commitment to service. Brian’s unprecedented support, and his irrefutable evidence of redemption, are precisely the circumstances for which clemency is designed.”
According to data from the Death Penalty Information Center, Missouri will be the fourth state this year to conduct an execution, should Dorsey’s execution proceed.
The execution is scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday and will be carried out by lethal injection, per the state’s execution protocol.
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