USA OUTCOME: MISSOURI’S FIRST EXECUTION OF 2025 IMMINENT

Dear Governor,

I urge you to commute Lance Shockley’s death sentence. I am in no way seeking to downplay the serious nature of the 2005 crime – the murder of a police officer who was investigating a fatal drunk-driving accident.

The foreperson of the jury – whose own son was a police officer – shared with other jurors a “fictionalized autobiography” he had authored about the revenge murder of a man responsible for a fatal drunk-driving accident who had “escaped justice” in the courts. The defense lawyer had failed to ask about the book’s contents before its author was selected to sit on the jury.

Lance Shockley was blocked from pursuing his claim of ineffectiveness of counsel in the Eighth Circuit because it denied him a “certificate of appealability” (COA). In at least four other Circuits, he would have been granted a COA. Dissenting against the US Supreme Court’s refusal to address an “entrenched circuit split” that has “significant consequences”, two Justices wrote that the trial lawyer appeared to have been constitutionally ineffective, but that the Eighth Circuit’s refusal to grant a COA was depriving Lance Shockley of the ability to pursue his claim.

Lance Shockley was sentenced to death even though the jury was unable to decide upon punishment. Under an unusual state law criticized by former Missouri judges, the trial judge took the decision himself.

I note that the evidence against Lance Shockley was entirely circumstantial, which coupled with concerns on tainted jury deliberations renders this case troubling. His efforts to have modern DNA testing of crime scene evidence have so far been denied. I urge you to consider the international safeguard prohibiting the death penalty when there is any “room for an alternative explanation of the facts”. I appeal to you to halt Lance Shockley’s execution and to commute his death sentence.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]