Missouri Governor Denies Clemency for Lance Shockley Despite Broad Bipartisan Support for Commutation of His Death Sentence

Yesterday, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe denied clemen­cy to Lance Shockley, who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion today at 6 p.m. However, a recent sur­vey found that Missouri vot­ers, by a bipar­ti­san two-thirds major­i­ty, would pre­fer to see Mr. Shockley’s death sen­tence com­mut­ed. Dr. Nicholas Scurich of the University of California, Irvine, found that 65% of the 440 reg­is­tered Missouri vot­ers sur­veyed sup­port­ed clemen­cy for Mr. Shockley when they learned the facts of his case, includ­ing majori­ties of every polit­i­cal par­ty affil­i­a­tion — and only 19% of respon­dents out­right opposed clemen­cy. Voters who sup­port­ed clemen­cy ​“cit­ed doubts about the strength of the evi­dence, con­cerns about the fair­ness of the judi­cial process, and Shockley’s pos­i­tive con­duct and trans­for­ma­tion while incar­cer­at­ed.” This sur­vey adds to a body of research demon­strat­ing grow­ing pub­lic sup­port for mer­cy in capital cases. 

Mr. Shockley was charged with the 2005 mur­der of a police offi­cer who was inves­ti­gat­ing Mr. Shockley as the sus­pect­ed drunk dri­ver in a fatal car crash. Without a DNA match or eye­wit­ness­es, the evi­dence against him was cir­cum­stan­tial: a car parked near the victim’s res­i­dence matched the descrip­tion of a car Mr. Shockley had bor­rowed from his grand­moth­er, Mr. Shockley alleged­ly asked his grand­moth­er to say he had been home all day, and a rifle owned by Mr. Shockley’s uncle may have matched a bul­let at the scene. However, an expert found the bal­lis­tics evi­dence incon­clu­sive, and the state-appoint­ed expert ini­tial­ly agreed the results were incon­clu­sive before revis­ing his opin­ion based on dis­cus­sions with colleagues. 

Dr. Scurich found that ​“many par­tic­i­pants expressed con­cern about the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the evi­dence and the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Shockley may not be fac­tu­al­ly guilty.” Said one Missouri vot­er, ​“I do not sup­port the death penal­ty unless there is irrefutable evi­dence that the accused com­mit­ted the crime (DNA, video footage, etc.).” Another said, ​“The death penal­ty should be reserved for sit­u­a­tions where there is zero doubt about the party’s guilt and prefer­ably more evi­dence than he-said, she-said.” Earlier this year, a court denied Mr. Shockley’s motion for DNA test­ing of ten pieces of evi­dence from the crime scene. 

The jury con­vict­ed Mr. Shockley, but short­ly after, the court dis­cov­ered poten­tial bias by the jury fore­man, who had brought his self-pub­lished book to delib­er­a­tions and showed it to oth­er jurors — a nov­el fea­tur­ing a pro­tag­o­nist who sought vig­i­lante jus­tice against a per­son respon­si­ble for a drunk-dri­ving acci­dent. The fore­man was there­after removed from the tri­al, but the court allowed Mr. Shockley’s con­vic­tion to stand and for the remain­ing jury mem­bers to pro­ceed to sen­tenc­ing. In a dis­sent from denial of review of Mr. Shockley’s case in March this year, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed strong con­cern about the mis­con­duct, the fail­ure of Mr. Shockley’s tri­al attor­ney to ade­quate­ly argue for a mis­tri­al in response, and the pro­ce­dur­al han­dling of this issue on appeal. Missouri vot­ers favored clemen­cy even with­out being informed about the foreman’s mis­con­duct, which was not includ­ed in the sum­ma­ry pro­vid­ed to survey participants. 

After the fore­man was removed, jurors could not agree on the sen­tence for Mr. Shockley and dead­locked 11 – 1 in favor of the death penal­ty. That was when the judge stepped in and sen­tenced Mr. Shockley to death. Judges can only impose death sen­tences over a hung jury in Missouri and Indiana; two oth­er states, Alabama and Florida, per­mit non-unan­i­mous death sen­tences. Every oth­er state requires a unan­i­mous jury to sen­tence a per­son to death. According to Dr. Scurich, many Missouri vot­ers saw this pro­ce­dure ​“as both pro­ce­du­ral­ly unfair and indica­tive of judi­cial over­reach.” “[A] sin­gle judge should not pass a death sen­tence, that itself is shock­ing,” wrote one vot­er. ​“There’s a process for a rea­son, judges aren’t meant to be, and shouldn’t be, exe­cu­tion­ers,” said anoth­er. The Kansas City Star Editorial Board called on Gov. Kehoe to spare Mr. Shockley’s life, writ­ing, ​“One agent of the state should not hold the pow­er to arbi­trar­i­ly hand down a death sentence.”

Missouri vot­ers also looked favor­ably on Mr. Shockley’s behav­ior in prison. As President of the Restorative Justice Association at Potosi Correctional Center, Mr. Shockley has ​“led wor­ship ser­vices, coun­seled peers, and men­tored oth­ers strug­gling with addic­tion and trau­ma.” He once saved the life of anoth­er pris­on­er. ​“He’s been an exam­ple of what all of us want in our lives and he’s doing it inside a fence,” said Rob Gerst, a for­mer prison chap­lain at Potosi. ​“I believe any­one can change and while I do believe he com­mit­ted the crime, judg­ing by his behav­ior in prison and grow­ing faith, I think he deserves a sec­ond chance and life impris­on­ment would keep the pub­lic safe while still giv­ing him a sec­ond chance,” wrote one Missouri voter. 

Gov. Kehoe’s deci­sion to deny clemen­cy fol­lows a pat­tern iden­ti­fied by DPI in its Lethal Election report (2024): exec­u­tive offi­cials with the sole author­i­ty to grant clemen­cy in cap­i­tal cas­es almost nev­er do so when they are eli­gi­ble for reelec­tion. In sole-author­i­ty juris­dic­tions, 85% of indi­vid­ual clemen­cy grants and 100% of mass clemen­cy grants occurred when the exec­u­tive was not up for reelec­tion. Gov. Kehoe took office this year and is eli­gi­ble for a sec­ond term. Mr. Shockley’s clemen­cy peti­tion was the first to cross his desk. 

While some elect­ed offi­cials may fear vot­ers will react neg­a­tive­ly to cap­i­tal clemen­cy grants, Dr. Scurich’s work builds on data sug­gest­ing the oppo­site is true. A 2023 ACLU report found that bipar­ti­san majori­ties of vot­ers sup­port­ed clemen­cy, includ­ing dur­ing elec­tion years, with 61% say­ing they ​“would be more like­ly to vote for a guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date who sup­ports a plan for clemen­cy.” A 2024 poll found that at least 80% of both Trump and Harris vot­ers sup­port­ed their can­di­date ​“increas­ing the num­ber of com­mu­ta­tions through executive clemency.” 

In Dr. Scurich’s sur­vey, even many death penal­ty pro­po­nents sup­port­ed clemen­cy for Mr. Shockley, includ­ing near­ly two-thirds (63.1%) of peo­ple who ​“some­what sup­port” the death penal­ty and one-quar­ter (22.9%) of peo­ple who ​“strong­ly sup­port” the death penal­ty. Majorities of par­tic­i­pants from most reli­gious faiths sup­port­ed clemen­cy, includ­ing 64% of Evangelical Christians, who typ­i­cal­ly hold more con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal and social posi­tions. Advocates pre­sent­ed Gov. Kehoe with a peti­tion to par­don Mr. Shockley that gar­nered 31,000 signatures. 

“[I]nconsistent evi­dence and pro­ceed­ings shouldn’t result in such a final­i­ty,” one Missouri vot­er wrote. Or, as anoth­er vot­er put it, ​“You don’t take someone’s life for ​‘prob­a­bly.’”