Entries tagged with “Kevin Johnson”

Jul 30, 2026

The Marshall Project Analysis Finds Missouri Executes at One of the Nation’s Highest Rates

Missouri has car­ried out exe­cu­tions at one of the high­est rates of any state since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to resume 50 years ago, accord­ing to a new analy­sis of death sen­tences issued between 1972 and 2025. *The Marshall Project*, draw­ing on data com­piled by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Professor Frank Baumgartner and the Death Penalty Information Center, found that Missouri has exe­cut­ed more than half of the peo­ple it has sentenced…

Executions

Religion

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Feb 03, 2026

Restrictions on Spiritual Advisers in Execution Chambers Persist Despite Supreme Court Ruling

When Lance Shockley was exe­cut­ed in Missouri in October 2025, he request­ed the pres­ence of his daugh­ter, an ordained min­is­ter, in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber as his spir­i­tu­al advis­er. The Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) denied his request, and Mr. Shockley was exe­cut­ed. His case rep­re­sents one exam­ple of how states have applied the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 rul­ing in *Ramirez v. Collier*, a deci­sion that acknowl­edged the reli­gious rights of death-sentenced…

Issues

Nov 28, 2022

Missouri Executes Kevin Johnson Despite Special Prosecutor’s Call to Vacate Death Sentence

Despite a court-appoint­ed spe­cial prosecutor’s request to vacate his death sen­tence, Missouri exe­cut­ed death-row pris­on­er Kevin Johnson (pic­tured, with daugh­ter Khorry Ramey, left, and new­born grand­son) on November 29, 2022. The exe­cu­tion moved for­ward after the Missouri Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court denied stays of exe­cu­tion fol­low­ing oral argu­ment in the Missouri high court less than 36 hours before the scheduled execution.