Missouri Set to Execute Death Row Prisoner Who Was Denied Federal Review

Missouri plans to exe­cute Mark Christeson (pic­tured) on January 31, with­out his case ever receiv­ing sub­stan­tive review in a federal court. 

Christeson’s appel­late attor­neys effec­tive­ly aban­doned him, fail­ing to meet with him until a month after the fil­ing dead­line in his case had already passed. They filed his fed­er­al appeal four months late. As a result, the fed­er­al court reject­ed it as untime­ly. New attor­neys offered to rep­re­sent him, since the attor­neys who missed the fil­ing dead­line could not effec­tive­ly argue his case with­out admit­ting their own error. 

Two fed­er­al courts reject­ed the sub­sti­tu­tion before the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed it. A fed­er­al dis­trict court then, with­out expla­na­tion, denied near­ly all the fund­ing request­ed by his new attor­neys to rein­ves­ti­gate the case. 

In 2016, a group of for­mer judges and three of the nation’s lead­ing crim­i­nal defense orga­ni­za­tions filed ami­cus briefs with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, urg­ing the court to grant Christeson the fund­ing nec­es­sary to pre­pare his case. His attor­neys say that evi­dence of Christeson’s intel­lec­tu­al impair­ments and abu­sive upbring­ing were nev­er pre­sent­ed to a jury. 

On January 18, 2017, the Eighth Circuit ordered the fed­er­al dis­trict court to ​“con­vene prompt­ly a lim­it­ed evi­den­tiary hear­ing on the ques­tion of aban­don­ment.” U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple found that the missed fil­ing dead­line did not con­sti­tute aban­don­ment and denied Christeson a stay of execution. 

The Missouri fed­er­al dis­trict courts have been notable for their fail­ure to inter­vene in a string of con­tro­ver­sial exe­cu­tions, includ­ing the cas­es of Cecil Clayton, Andre Cole, and Richard Strong, but accord­ing to the Columbia Daily Tribune, Christeson would be the first per­son exe­cut­ed in Missouri in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty to have had no fed­er­al appeals. [UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court denied Christeson’s peti­tion for cer­tio­rari and motion for stay of exe­cu­tion and he was exe­cut­ed on January 31.]