Missouri Prisoner With Rare Disease Seeks Clemency to Prevent ​“Gruesome” Execution

A Missouri death-row pris­on­er whose rare med­ical con­di­tion, he says, risks mak­ing his exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion a grue­some and gris­ly spec­ta­cle is seek­ing clemen­cy from Missouri Governor Mike Parson ahead of his October 1, 2019 execution date. 

Russell Bucklew (pic­tured) suf­fers from cav­ernous heman­gioma, a con­di­tion that caus­es blood-filled tumors to form in his head and neck. His lawyers have asked Parson to com­mute his death sen­tence on human­i­tar­i­an grounds, say­ing his tumors are like­ly to burst and he is like­ly to suf­fo­cate and drown in his own blood if he is sub­ject­ed to lethal injec­tion. They also say that mer­cy is appro­pri­ate because his tri­al lawyers mis­han­dled his defense and Bucklew is a ​“fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent per­son” than he was when he com­mit­ted the mur­der 23 years ago. [UPDATE: Governor Parsons denied Bucklew’s clemen­cy peti­tion and he was exe­cut­ed on October 1.]

The con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Bucklew’s exe­cu­tion was the sub­ject of a con­tro­ver­sial 5 – 4 U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion in April 2019 after he argued that exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion would con­sti­tute cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment for a per­son with his med­ical con­di­tion. Permitting the exe­cu­tion to go for­ward, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the Court major­i­ty, “[t]he Eighth Amendment does not guar­an­tee a pris­on­er a pain­less death.” For an exe­cu­tion method to be con­sid­ered uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly cru­el, Gorsuch wrote, it must ​“intensif[y] the death sen­tence by ​‘super­adding’ ter­ror, pain, or dis­grace” to the pun­ish­ment. This, the Court said, requires the pris­on­er to show that the state had avail­able to it a ​“fea­si­ble and read­i­ly imple­ment­ed alter­na­tive method [of exe­cu­tion] … that would sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce a sub­stan­tial risk of severe pain” and that, ​“with­out a legit­i­mate peno­log­i­cal rea­son,” the state had refused to adopt that method. The Court ruled that Bucklew had not proven that Missouri had a fea­si­ble alter­na­tive method to execute him. 

Bucklew’s clemen­cy peti­tion argues not only that his exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion would be excru­ci­at­ing, but that, ​“Russell’s com­pro­mised med­ical con­di­tion make it high­ly like­ly that the state’s pro­to­col will cause a visu­al­ly grue­some exe­cu­tion that will trau­ma­tize cor­rec­tions per­son­nel and wit­ness­es alike.” His lawyers sug­gest that the spec­ta­cle of such an exe­cu­tion could have ongo­ing ram­i­fi­ca­tions for the state: ​“The after­math of Russell’s exe­cu­tion will have a last­ing impact on those present to wit­ness the moment and will like­ly affect the public’s atti­tude about the death penal­ty and, in par­tic­u­lar, how this state car­ries out the ultimate punishment.”

The clemen­cy peti­tion also presents mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that Bucklew’s tri­al attor­neys failed to uncov­er. While his par­ents char­ac­ter­ized his upbring­ing as ​“tran­quil” and ​“idyl­lic,” inter­views with oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends revealed that this char­ac­ter­i­za­tion was false and self-serv­ing. Instead, they said, his father’s relent­less abu­sive­ness and extra-mar­i­tal affairs con­tributed to Russell’s moth­er hav­ing a ner­vous break­down and attempt­ing sui­cide. At the time of his crime, Bucklew was addict­ed to opi­oid painkillers that he had been pre­scribed for his cav­ernous heman­gioma, which he said affect­ed his think­ing and mood: ​“I felt angry from the meds. It was much hard­er to keep my feel­ings under con­trol. I no longer feel that way and have changed a lot.” A psy­chi­a­trist who met with Bucklew only once and relied large­ly on con­ver­sa­tions with his par­ents that mis­rep­re­sent­ed Russell’s back­ground diag­nosed Bucklew with Antisocial Personality Disorder. Prosecutors then used that diag­no­sis against him, argu­ing that Bucklew was a ​“sociopath” who deserved a death sen­tence. After being pro­vid­ed with fur­ther infor­ma­tion about Bucklew, the psy­chi­a­trist retract­ed the diag­no­sis. Bucklew’s cur­rent attor­neys also dis­cov­ered that his pre­vi­ous clemen­cy attor­ney, John Simon, had bor­rowed $27,000 from Bucklew’s par­ents, pos­si­bly con­tribut­ing to his fail­ure to ful­ly inves­ti­gate Bucklew’s upbringing.

Bucklew’s clemen­cy plea has received sup­port from Missouri bish­ops, The Kansas City Star, and the ACLU. In a let­ter to the gov­er­nor, Missouri’s four Catholic bish­ops said, “[a]s Catholic bish­ops, we have con­sis­tent­ly opposed the use of the death penal­ty. Evidence shows that the death penal­ty is often unfair and biased in its appli­ca­tion. By end­ing the use of the death penal­ty, we can hope­ful­ly begin to break the cycle of vio­lence.” They added that Bucklew’s ​“par­tic­u­lar med­ical sit­u­a­tion war­rants spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion.” In an edi­to­r­i­al, The Kansas City Star urged Governor Parson to reduce Bucklew’s sen­tence, say­ing, ​“a gris­ly death at our col­lec­tive hand is a dis­hon­or­able answer to 51-year-old Bucklew’s bloody behav­ior 23 years ago.” The ACLU col­lect­ed 30,000 sig­na­tures in sup­port of Bucklew, and is also pre­sent­ing his case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seek­ing a deter­mi­na­tion that his exe­cu­tion would vio­late U.S. treaty oblig­a­tions. Bucklew him­self pro­vid­ed a state­ment to The Appeal, say­ing, ​“The law doesn’t take into con­sid­er­a­tion that with age comes wis­dom. I am absolute­ly a dif­fer­ent per­son. I am more even-keeled than I was when I was younger. I feel ter­ri­ble about what hap­pened to Stephanie Ray and Michael Sanders.”