A Man With An IQ Of 67 Is Scheduled To Be Executed Tonight (Tuesday)
"On Tuesday night, an intellectually disabled man with a brain tumor will die by lethal injection in Missouri, for the murder of three convenience store workers in 1994. Unless the Supreme Court grants an eleventh-hour stay or the governor offers him clemency, Ernest Lee Johnson will become the seventh person the state has executed in 2015...
Attorneys have appealed the death penalty sentence on the grounds that his IQ of 67 is low enough that putting him to death is unconstitutional...
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...intellectually-disabled-man-with-brain-tumor/
---
An Opinion: Ernest Johnson cannot be legally executed
"Tuesday evening, barring intervention from Gov. Jay Nixon or a court, Missouri will execute Ernest Johnson, a man with an IQ of 67. If allowed, Mr. Johnsons execution will violate the Supreme Courts ruling in 2002, Atkins v. Virginia, that the Constitution prohibits the execution of the intellectually disabled...
But because of his mental condition, Johnson cannot be legally executed. Prosecutors consistently have dismissed the significance of his disability and advocated for the death penalty. To decide its more likely true than not that this guy is mentally retarded, the prosecutor argued to a jury in 2005, is an insult, an insult to these victims....
At trial, testing by both the prosecution and defense revealed Johnson had an IQ of 67, which is well within the range of intellectual disability. Johnson was born with the developmental consequences of fetal alcohol syndrome. In a series of IQ tests that began at age 8 and spanned decades, he scored below the threshold for intellectual disability six times..."
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinio...cle_828c3b97-9317-5ec2-b311-81234b6ed88e.html
---
Chris Geidner ✔ @chrisgeidner
BREAKING: #SCOTUS grants stay of execution to Ernest Johnson in Missouri.
7:43 PM - 3 Nov 2015
----
US supreme court halts execution of Ernest Johnson in Missouri
"The US supreme court on Tuesday night halted the execution of a Missouri man who murdered three people in 1994 to allow an appeal on whether he may suffer undue pain from the lethal injection drug due to a medical condition....
Missouri governor Jay Nixon has received and is reviewing Johnsons petition for clemency, spokesman Scott Holste said..."
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...court-halts-execution-missouri-ernest-johnson
---
Ernest Lee JOHNSON
"Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Robbery
Number of victims: 3
Date of murders: February 12, 1994
Date of birth: August 20, 1960
Victims profile: Mary Bratcher, 46; Fred Jones, 58; and Mabel Scruggs, 57 (convenience store employees)
Method of murder: Hitting with a hammer
Location: Boone County, Missouri, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on June 20, 1995..."
http://www.murderpedia.org/male.J/j/johnson-ernest-lee.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------