Missouri man committed a horrific crime. But execution is not justice — it’s cruelty
Little evidence suggests Missouri Gov. Mike Parson will spare the life of convicted cop killer Kevin Johnson, a Missouri death row inmate scheduled to be put to death this fall. Just last year, Parson ignored a plea from Pope Francis to stay the execution of an intellectually disabled man. We oppose Johnson’s pending execution, despite our revulsion at the gravity of his crime, and call on Parson to grant Johnson, of suburban St. Louis, clemency and end government-sanctioned violence.
But it’s not simply the Johnson case that’s the problem. The death penalty is cruel and inhumane. Its application is fraught with risk of error. And study after study has shown the death penalty doesn’t deter violent crime.
Capital punishment is already outlawed in 23 states. Missouri isn’t among them and it shows. Since the turn of the century, 51 men have been executed in the state, according to anti-death penalty advocacy group Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Only four other states have executed more.
In addition to Johnson, 17 others are on death row in Missouri. Despite their crimes, being put to death by the government is an injustice that implicates all the people in whose name the state spills blood.
Racial and economic disparities exist at nearly every stage of the capital punishment process, studies have consistently shown.
There’s also increased cost concerns associated with capital punishment. Death penalty cases are extraordinarily expensive and drawn out. For example, in neighboring Kansas, where the death penalty exists but where no one has been executed since 1965, cases without the death penalty cost $740,000, while death penalty cases cost $1.26 million, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which cited a 2014 study on the issue — a figure backed up earlier this year by a bipartisan group of prosecutors opposing the death penalty.
And too often, the system gets it wrong. Since 1973, at least 190 people who have been wrongly convicted and awaiting execution on death row have been exonerated. And a 2014 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that approximately 4.1% of those currently on death row could be innocent.
That shouldn’t surprise us. Any human system is bound to be imperfect. That’s the strongest reason why we shouldn’t dole out punishments that can never be adjusted once carried out.
In Jackson County, the death penalty has thankfully been used sparingly. In the last two decades, only five people have been executed for crimes — and none since 2015, according to Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
The governor is clearly pro-death penalty. He has yet to meet a death row inmate he’s deemed worthy of mercy. Since Parson took office in 2018, Missouri has executed four convicted killers — Russell Bucklew, Walter Barton, Ernest Johnson and Carman Deck. Not once has Parson, a former Polk County sheriff, spared the life of the condemned.
It’s true that Johnson’s case does not elicit much sympathy. In 2005, he was 19 when he shot Kirkwood Police Sgt. William McEntee. His first murder trial ended with a hung jury. He was later convicted by a second jury of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
Last month, the Missouri Supreme Court set Johnson’s execution date for Nov. 29 despite the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney office’s attempt to review the case.
Anti-death penalty advocates point out that Johnson, a teenager when he killed McEntee, was abused as a child and grieving the unrelated death of a younger brother earlier that day. As a low-income Black person, Johnson had little chance to escape the death penalty, his supporters argued.
McEntee, the slain Kirkwood Police sergeant, was white, as was the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney at the time who sought the death penalty. After a number of potential Blacks jurors were excluded, Johnson was convicted of murder by a predominantly white jury.
But none of that is grounds by itself to single him out for mercy. Unless those were factors hidden from the jury when it imposed its sentence, the question isn’t one of Johnson’s culpability. He was convicted of a grotesque act of violence — McEntee was shot seven times in the head and torso. The fatal bullet was fired at close range. Instead, the question is one of justice, and whether given all the flaws in our very human criminal justice system it can ever be just to execute someone in the name of the state.
Johnson should be remanded to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
We urge Missouri to join the 23 states that have already abolished capital punishment altogether. (An additional three states — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place that have stopped executions.)
The death penalty is a deeply flawed and inhumane practice, unequally and arbitrarily applied. It needs to stop.
