Compromised Justice: How A Legacy of Racial Violence Informs Missouri’s Death Penalty Today

Missouri is one of a hand­ful of states that has con­sis­tent­ly exe­cut­ed peo­ple in the last five years. In 2023, Missouri exe­cut­ed four peo­ple. Understanding the his­tor­i­cal appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in Missouri helps our under­stand­ing of how cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is used today. 

Historically, Missouri’s Death Penalty Was Applied Discriminatorily Based on Race 

Decades before Missouri gained state­hood, the ter­ri­to­ry adopt­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws that were applied based on race. There were at least four crimes that could only be tried cap­i­tal­ly if com­mit­ted by an enslaved per­son. After Missouri became a state in 1821 and had adopt­ed super­fi­cial­ly race-neu­tral cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws, the death penal­ty con­tin­ued to be applied dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly: enslaved peo­ple were four times more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than white Missourians before 1865. 

Missouri Has a Substantial History of Racial Violence Directed at Black Missourians 

The first doc­u­ment­ed lynch­ing in U.S. his­to­ry hap­pened in Missouri in 1838. By the late 1800s, racial ter­ror lynch­ings had increased in reg­u­lar­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Southern, for­mer slave-hold­ing states. Throughout the 19^th and 20^th cen­turies, at least 60 Black Missourians were killed in lynch­ings, mak­ing it the state with the sec­ond high­est num­ber of racial ter­ror lynch­ings out­side of the South. 

Although the num­ber of lynch­ings declined, pub­lic exe­cu­tions con­tin­ued in Missouri longer than all but one oth­er state. Public exe­cu­tions were a form of racial vio­lence: there are exam­ples of sher­iffs pro­vid­ing exe­cu­tion atten­dees with sou­venirs such as pieces of the ropes used to hang Black peo­ple and even the victim’s body parts. After a quadru­ple exe­cu­tion in St. Louis, a drug store own­er was per­mit­ted to dis­play the sev­ered head of a Black per­son who was exe­cut­ed in his shop. The con­stant reminders of bru­tal lynch­ings and exe­cu­tions were used by white peo­ple to con­tin­u­al­ly threat­en and intim­i­date Black people. 

Modern Death Sentencing Trends Reveal a Continued Emphasis on Race in Capital Punishment, and Prosecutorial Decision-Making is a Cause of Racial Disparities 

One of the most clear and per­sis­tent racial dis­par­i­ties in death sen­tenc­ing con­cerns the over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of white vic­tims among cas­es result­ing in a death sen­tence. In Missouri, homi­cides involv­ing white vic­tims are sev­en times more like­ly to result in an exe­cu­tion than those with Black vic­tims. Of all death sen­tences imposed in Missouri since 1972, 80% have involved white vic­tims, even though white vic­tims make up rough­ly 36% of homi­cide vic­tims in the state. Meanwhile, 2020 homi­cide data revealed that, for the sev­enth year in a row, Missouri had the high­est Black homi­cide vic­tim­iza­tion rate in the country. 

Statistical analy­ses have found that broad pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion is one rea­son for con­tin­u­ing racial dis­par­i­ties in cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing. One study found that pros­e­cu­tors were less than half as like­ly to file a cap­i­tal charge in cas­es that involve Black vic­tims com­pared to cas­es involv­ing white vic­tims. A sep­a­rate study deter­mined that Black defen­dants who killed white vic­tims were five times more like­ly to be charged with mur­der than Black defen­dants in intrara­cial cas­es. The authors of this study con­clud­ed that ​“white­ness is val­ued over non-whiteness.” 

Celia, a Slave 

In 1855, an 18-year-old preg­nant, enslaved girl named Celia was accused of killing her own­er after he attempt­ed to rape her. The morn­ing after the mur­der, a white neigh­bor forced a con­fes­sion from her, lat­er say­ing he had a rope ​“pro­vid­ed for her if she did not tell.” This con­fes­sion was then used to secure a death sen­tence for her. At the time, Missouri law made it a crime to ​“take any woman unlaw­ful­ly against her will and by force, men­ace or duress” and resist­ing these advances could have been con­sid­ered a jus­ti­fi­able excuse for a woman to kill a man. Despite her attorney’s pleas to instruct the jury on the lan­guage in this statute being ​“any woman,” the judge decid­ed against inform­ing them, and Celia was sen­tenced to death. She was hanged on December 21, 1855. 

Easter Sunday Lynchings of Horace Duncan, Fred Coker, and Will Allen 

In April 1906, Horace Duncan and Fred Coker, two inno­cent Black men, were abduct­ed from the coun­ty jail in Springfield, Missouri and lynched by a white mob of sev­er­al thou­sand par­tic­i­pants. Duncan and Coker were arrest­ed after a white woman report­ed being assault­ed by two Black man. There was no evi­dence that Duncan and Coker were involved in the crime, and their employ­er also pro­vid­ed an ali­bi con­firm­ing that they could not have been involved in the alleged assault. Nevertheless, as one news­pa­per report­ed, the mob ​“was bent on vengeance and in no mood to dis­crim­i­nate between guilt and inno­cence.” After watch­ing Duncan and Coker’s bod­ies burn to ash, the mob con­tin­ued their ram­page and abduct­ed anoth­er Black man from the jail. Will Allen became the third and final vic­tim of this Eastern Sunday lynch mob. Two days lat­er, the woman who report­ed the assault issued a state­ment say­ing she was ​“pos­i­tive” that Coker and Duncan were not her assailants, but it was too late. No one was con­vict­ed fol­low­ing the lynching. 

Cleo Wright 

Cleo Wright, a 30-year-old Black man, was accused of assault­ing a white woman in January 1942. After his arrest, he was shot four times by one offi­cer, and beat­en on the skull with a revolver by anoth­er offi­cer until he fell out of the police car. The hos­pi­tal refused to admit Wright for treat­ment because of his race. By 9 AM the fol­low­ing day, a crowd of 500 peo­ple had gath­ered, and his vir­tu­al­ly uncon­scious body was dragged into the Black res­i­den­tial dis­trict — which was like­ly an inten­tion­al choice to fur­ther ter­ror­ize the Black com­mu­ni­ty. Wright’s body was then set on fire by the mob. Wright’s lynch­ing was the first lynch­ing to result in a Department of Justice civ­il rights inves­ti­ga­tion. Though fed­er­al author­i­ties inves­ti­gat­ed the lynch­ing, no one was indict­ed or con­vict­ed in the mur­der. Many peo­ple who were at the lynch­ing are still liv­ing today, accord­ing to Sikeston natives, where the lynching occurred. 

Kevin Johnson 

While white police offi­cers who kill Black civil­ians are rarely charged (let alone con­vict­ed), Black civil­ians who kill white police offi­cers are often charged and pros­e­cut­ed. Kevin Johnson was tried cap­i­tal­ly twice in St. Louis County for killing a police offi­cer in 2005. A spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor reviewed Johnson’s case in 2021 and found that ​“uncon­sti­tu­tion­al racial dis­crim­i­na­tion infect­ed [his] pros­e­cu­tion.” Among oth­er evi­dence of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, the spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor found racial dif­fer­ences in charg­ing deci­sions for cas­es involv­ing offi­cer killings. Bob McCulloch, the St. Louis County pros­e­cu­tor respon­si­ble for a third of Missouri’s active death sen­tences, pros­e­cut­ed five police offi­cer killings dur­ing his tenure. McCulloch sought the death penal­ty in the four cas­es with Black defen­dants. In the one case involv­ing a white defen­dant, McCulloch sought life, even though the defen­dant had bragged on social media about want­i­ng to kill cops. Further, the white defendant’s attor­neys were giv­en almost a year to col­lect mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, while the Black defen­dants were not giv­en the same opportunities. 

Ernest Johnson 

Ernest Johnson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1995 and exe­cut­ed in 2021 despite strong evi­dence that he was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. Mr. Johnson had shown signs of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty from a very young age: he was held back twice in grade school, aca­d­e­m­ic tests placed him in the bot­tom 1 – 2% in math and read­ing, and his sib­lings said he strug­gled with basic skills such as using a knife and fork. Mr. Johnson’s attempts to seek relief because of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty were thwart­ed based on an opin­ion from a tech­ni­cian who lacked any train­ing in admin­is­ter­ing IQ tests or mak­ing clin­i­cal obser­va­tions about them. The pros­e­cu­tor used this tes­ti­mo­ny to accuse Mr. Johnson of inten­tion­al­ly low­er­ing his IQ scores, which con­sis­tent­ly fell around or below 70, a num­ber that experts believe is con­sis­tent with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Johnson’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claims, cred­it­ing the unqual­i­fied technician’s opin­ions. Diverse stake­hold­ers called on Governor Mike Parsons to exer­cise clemen­cy, includ­ing for­mer Governor Bob Holden who allowed 20 peo­ple to be exe­cut­ed while he was in office. Gov. Parsons refused to grant clemen­cy, and Mr. Johnson was exe­cut­ed on October 5, 2021.