Death Penalty

St. Louis Public Radio is publishing a series of stories, in collaboration the River City Journalism Fund, that analyzes the use of the death penalty in St. Louis County, which has sentenced more people to death than any other Missouri county since 1976.

Kevin Johnson killed a Kirkwood cop. After 17 years grappling with his guilt, his only hope is a last-minute reprieve.

Ernest Johnson is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Tuesday

Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to die on Jan. 12. She faces the death penalty for one of the most heinous murders in recent Missouri history: that of pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett. But her lawyers point to a mountain of mitigating evidence, including years of documented abuse as a child and severe mental illness.

In 2017, then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens postponed the execution of Marcellus Williams and announced that he would appoint a board of inquiry to review new evidence in the case. That was three years ago this Saturday, and Williams remains on death row at the state prison in Potosi. Opponents of capital punishment are urging Gov. Mike Parson to act on the case.

Missouri executed its first prisoner since 2017 on Tuesday night. Despite the man’s rare medical condition, no complications were reported.

Missouri is scheduled to execute Russell Bucklew by injection on Tuesday, but his advocates want Gov. Mike Parson to stop it because they say a medical…

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday set an execution date of Oct. 1 for Russell Bucklew, whose challenge to the state’s lethal injection method was...

A narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Missouri death row inmate’s challenge to the state’s single-drug lethal injection method, finding...

The Missouri Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Wednesday in a case challenging the legality of one aspect of Missouri’s death penalty statute.