Arguments set for Columbia man’s death penalty appeal
A federal appeals court will hear a Columbia man’s case to avoid death by lethal injection next month.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear Ernest L. Johnson’s case on May 16 in Omaha. Johnson appealed a lower court’s decision to dismiss his case last year.
Courts have upheld the death penalty for Johnson since 1995, when a jury convicted him of three murders. Johnson killed Mabel Scruggs, Fred Jones and Mary Bratcher at a convenience store on Ballenger Lane.
A district court judge dismissed Johnson’s lawsuit in May 2017. District Judge Greg Kays said Johnson could not prove lethal injection would cause cruel and unusual punishment, and that death by lethal gas was a readily available alternative in Missouri.
Johnson said a brain tumor surgery he had in 2008 left scarring, which he didn’t notice until an MRI in 2011. A doctor’s evaluation of Johnson in 2013 said that the scarring would cause Johnson painful seizures when given pentobarbital, the drug Missouri uses for its lethal injections. Johnson’s attorneys argue the state can use nitrogen gas to execute him instead, an untried method that they called more humane.
The U.S. Supreme Court put a stop to Johnson’s execution in 2015 just hours before it was set to happen. It ruled that the appellate court didn’t properly review Johnson’s claim. The case was eventually returned to the district court in 2016.
