Missouri Clear To Resume Executions

The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for executions to start again in Missouri. Arguments about whether lethal injection in the state is cruel and unusual punishment put a stop to executions in Missouri the last two years. But that's about to change. The Supreme Court has refused to hear the Missouri lethal injection case. That means lower court rulings stand. They've ruled lethal injection is permissible and Missouri's attorney general says executions will now start again.

The attorney general wants Joseph Paul Franklin to be the first to die. Franklin, a self-proclaimed racist and anti-Semite, opened fire at a Richmond Heights synagogue in October 1977. He killed Gerald Gordon and wounded two others.

Franklin killed up to 20 people in racist murders across the United States. But he was sentenced to die for the killing at the synagogue.


Rabbi Mordecai Miller, with Brith Shalom Kneseth Israel, says. "It's terribly important not to see the death penalty as revenge. I think that people immediately assume that it's a matter of revenge, and it never, ever, ever should be that. It's strictly a matter of justice."

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster explains, "It was a horrible and heinous murder. His appeals are run. We feel this case is ripe to move forward and we've asked the Missouri Supreme Court to set an execution date."

This isn't only about Franklin. Koster says this ruling will fast track over a dozen executions among the 48 people on Missouri's death row, "We're going to review the cases of probably fifteen, seventeen individuals who are on death row at Potosi. We're going to look at those cases and decide which ones are ripe to discuss with the Missouri Supreme Court, but the Franklin case is first among them."

Sister Rose Huelsmann, with Alternatives to the Death Penalty, responds, "I would hope that people with hope would stand up and say 'This is not us. We're not into state killing'. We're into justice and we're into helping the victims."

But besides the moral argument, there's another danger with Neo-Nazi Franklin's execution, says Koster, "The last thing I'd want to see is that somehow or another this person is made into a martyr."

For now, the only martyr here is Gerald Gordon. A memorial flower garden grows in the parking lot where he was gunned down 33 years ago.

There's no word yet on when the Missouri Supreme Court may set any execution dates, including Joseph Paul Franklin's.

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