Missouri Judge Imposes Second Non-Unanimous Death Sentence in Four Months

For the second time in four months, a Missouri judge has imposed a death sentence after a capital-sentencing jury did not reach a unanimous sentencing decision. Greene County Circuit Judge Thomas Mountjoy sentenced 49-year-old Craig Wood (pictured) to death on January 11 for the February 2014 killing of 10-year-old Hailey Owens. Wood was convicted of first-degree murder in November 2017, but the jury—empaneled from out-of-county jurors as a result of extensive pretrial publicity—could not reach a unanimous decision on whether to sentence Wood to life without possibility of parole or death. In more than 70 percent of states that have the death penalty, this would have resulted in Wood being sentenced to life. A DPIC analysis of capital-sentencing statutes in effect in the 31 death-penalty states and the federal government found that 22 states, plus the federal government mandate an automatic life sentence if a jury cannot reach a unanimous sentencing verdict. While seven states consider a non-unanimous sentencing vote a “hung jury,” Missouri and Indiana stand alone in removing the sentencing decision from the jury following a deadlock and transferring fact finding and decision-making authority to the judge. The jury in Wood’s case reportedly split 10-2 in favor of the death penalty and Wood’s lawyers had filed a motion challenging the constitutionality of Missouri’s hung-jury death-sentencing procedure. That motion argued that Wood’s right to a jury trial included a requirement that a death sentence could not be imposed without a unanimous jury vote. In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court and the Delaware Supreme Court struck down provisions in their death-penalty laws permitting judges to impose death sentences based upon non-unanimous jury recommendations for death. Alabama still permits that practice if ten jurors have voted for death. No jury has sentenced anyone to death in Missouri since 2013. However, on October 6, 2017, St. Charles County Judge Kelly Wayne Parker disregarded an 11-1 jury vote in favor of a life sentence and imposed the death penalty against 50-year-old Marvin Rice, a former Dent County deputy sheriff and state correctional officer. Rice was the only person sentenced to death in Missouri in 2017.

(Harrison Keegan, Will Craig Wood be executed? Some experts have doubts., Springfield News-Leader, January 12, 2018; Max Londberg, Former school worker gets death penalty in Missouri rape, murder of Hailey Owens, 10, The Kansas City Star, January 12, 2018; Harrison Keegan, Attorneys say Craig Wood did not get fair trial after errors by judge, Springfield News-Leader, December 27, 2017.) See Sentencing.