A Missouri man is set to be executed on Tuesday for fatally shooting a state trooper more than 20 years ago.
Lance Shockley received a death sentence for the murder of Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Dewayne Graham Jr. in March 2005. As per prosecutors, Shockley waited for several hours near Graham’s residence in Van Buren, southeast Missouri, before ambushing him with a rifle and shotgun as he stepped out of his patrol car.
Shockley, 48, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection after 6 p.m. local time at the state prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri.
His execution is one of two planned for Tuesday evening in the United States. In Florida, 72-year-old Samuel Lee Smithers is also scheduled to face lethal injection for the murders of two women, whose bodies were discovered in a rural pond back in 1996.
Shockley’s legal team has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution, citing a violation of his First Amendment rights because the Missouri Department of Corrections is not allowing his daughter to serve as his spiritual adviser during the execution. In a March 2022 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court mandated that states must permit spiritual advisers to accompany condemned inmates in the execution chamber.
Missouri’s officials counter that the state’s prison policies prohibit direct contact between family members and inmates during executions due to security concerns that family could disrupt proceedings.
GOP Gov. Mike Kehoe on Monday turned down Shockley’s request for clemency.
Kehoe stated, “Violence against those who dedicate their lives to safeguarding our communities is intolerable. Missouri fully supports our law enforcement officers.”
Recently, the Missouri Supreme Court dismissed a request to postpone Shockley’s execution until a lower state appeals court delivers a verdict on his attorneys’ petition for DNA testing of evidence collected at the crime scene. Attorney Jeremy Weis, representing Shockley, mentioned that a ruling on the DNA testing plea is improbable before Tuesday’s scheduled execution. Shockley’s defense argues that much of this evidence has never been examined and may potentially prove his innocence.
“Even a small chance of exoneration is enough to warrant testing,” Shockley’s lawyers said in court documents.
Authorities said Shockley shot Graham because the state trooper was investigating him for involuntary manslaughter after leaving the scene of a deadly accident in which Shockley’s best friend was killed. Prosecutors said Shockley borrowed his grandmother’s red Pontiac Grand Am, which was seen near Graham’s home on the day of the killing.
Shockley first shot Graham with a rifle, severing his spinal cord and causing him to fall to the ground and fracture his skull, according to prosecutors. Shockley then approached Graham and shot him in the face and shoulder with a shotgun. Shockley owned a .243-caliber rifle and .243-caliber rounds were recovered from Graham’s body. Bullet fragments found on the property of Shockley’s uncle matched the rounds recovered from the trooper’s body, according to court documents filed by the Missouri attorney general’s office.
Prosecutors presented no direct evidence connecting Shockley to the killing, Weis said.
“The state’s case remained circumstantial,” Weis said last week during a forum at the University of Missouri School of Law discussing the case. “The murder weapons were never found. There were disagreements between the ballistics experts hired by the prosecution.”
Shockley’s attorneys also say other witnesses placed his client about 14 miles (23 kilometers) away from Graham’s home at the time the prosecutors maintained he was lying in wait near the trooper’s house.
Prosecutors say Shockley had inquired about where Graham lived before the murder and tried to get rid of a box of .243-caliber ammunition around the time of the murder, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said that favorable DNA test results, “even if obtained, would not tend to undermine Shockley’s conviction.”
If the execution is carried out, Shockley would be the first person put to death this year in Missouri. The last execution in the state was on Dec. 3, when Christopher Collings received a lethal injection for sexually assaulting and killing a 9-year-old girl.
If both of Tuesday’s executions take place, that would bring this year’s total to 37 death sentences carried out nationwide.
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