Missouri is one of only two states in which judges can unilaterally impose the death penalty when a jury can’t agree on whether the defendant should be sentenced to death. In most other states, a deadlocked jury results in a sentence of life without parole
BY: CLARA BATES
Missouri Independent
A Missouri man who was sentenced to death by a trial judge in 2009 despite a jury deadlocking on whether he should be executed has been scheduled to undergo lethal injection in October.
The Missouri Supreme Court last week issued a warrant for the execution of Lance Shockley, who recently exhausted his state and federal appeals and was convicted of the 2005 murder of Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Dewayne Graham Jr.
The court announced the execution date last week.
Graham was shot and killed in his rural Carter County driveway. Graham had been investigating Shockley’s role in a fatal drunk driving accident, which the prosecution argued gave Shockley the motive to kill him. Shockley has insisted he’s innocent.
A jury in 2009 found Shockley guilty of first-degree murder. But in the punishment phase of Shockley’s trial, the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision on whether he should be executed.
In most states with active death penalty laws, that deadlock would have resulted in the defendant being sentenced to life without parole.
But under Missouri law, Shockley’s penalty case then got handed off to a Carter County circuit judge who, after independent review, sentenced him to death.
Only Missouri and Indiana give judges the authority to unilaterally decide on the death penalty, a fact that over the years has drawn scrutiny from those who believe it places too much power in the hands of one person and denies defendants their constitutional rights to trial by jury and protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
In 2023 Amber McLaughlin was executed because of the unilateral decision of a trial judge. Several retired judges opposed the execution in a letter to then-Gov. Mike Parson, calling it a “flaw in Missouri’s capital sentencing scheme.”
An analysis included in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court organized by the national nonprofit watchdog group Project on Government Oversight found Missouri judges, who are elected in most parts of the state, have been more likely than juries to impose death sentences.
In cases without jury deadlock, from 2000 to 2018, the jury imposed a death sentence in 64% of cases. But in deadlocked cases with a trial judge making the decision, the death penalty was imposed in 86% of cases, according to the brief.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in recent years have filed legislation to eliminate judge-imposed executions, but the proposals have made little progress.
Shockley has denied his involvement in Graham’s death, citing the lack of physical evidence or eyewitnesses. His attorneys have tried unsuccessfully to get evidence from the crime scene tested for DNA and have argued the police failed to investigate other possible suspects.
“Shockley’s defense at trial was that he was not the one who killed Sgt. Graham,” his attorney wrote in a brief last month. “Shockley has never wavered in that position.”
His attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The prosecution said Shockley borrowed a relative’s car the afternoon of Graham’s death and the car matched the description witnesses gave of one parked near Graham’s house the afternoon of his murder. Prosecutors also argued the recovered bullets may have been consistent with the caliber of a rifle Shockley owned. No murder weapon was found.
The Missouri Supreme Court, responding to the defense’s argument that the death penalty was excessive or disproportionate punishment for a case relying on circumstantial proof, said courts have previously upheld death sentences in cases hinging on strong circumstantial evidence and here, “the circumstantial evidence was strong.”
Shockley would be the first person executed in Missouri this year, barring intervention from Gov. Mike Kehoe or the U.S. Supreme Court.
Last year, Missouri executed four people. It was one of four states responsible for 76% of executions that year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.