Advocates urge governor to grant clemency in Columbia triple murder
![Ernest Lee Johnson](https://abc17news.b-cdn.net/abc17news.com/2020/03/ERNEST20JOHNSON209-30_1569892804216.PNG_39453825_ver1.0.png)
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
Anti-death penalty advocates delivered a petition Wednesday asking the state to spare the life of Ernest Johnson, saying his intellectual disability makes it unconstitutional to execute the man convicted of a Columbia triple murder.
Johnson is scheduled to die next week from lethal injection after being convicted in 1994 of the murder of three people at a Columbia convenience store. Johnson wanted the money to buy drugs, authorities said. All three workers were beaten with a claw hammer.
Advocates said Johnson is intellectually disabled and has been since childhood. Johnson also had about one-fifth of his brain tissue removed in 2008 during surgery to extract a tumor. Ever since undergoing this treatment, he has experienced painful seizures.
The state supreme court declined last month to halt Johnson's execution.
Speaker Justice Gangston said two wrongs don't make a right, referring to the state's plan to execute Johnson.
Advocates said that what Johnson did was wrong but putting him to death violates his legal rights as a disabled person.
Psychologist Laura Schopp, who was there to drop off the petition, said Johnson has struggled with his disorder since he was a child.
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