Bosley denounces Johnson execution amidst evidence of racist prosecution

Rep. LaKeySha Bosley (Tim Bommel/House Communications)

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — State Rep. LaKeySha Bosley, D-St. Louis, has denounced Gov. Mike Parson’s decision not to grant clemency to Kevin Johnson, scheduled for execution by lethal injection Tuesday.

“Gov. Parson and the state’s judicial system have ignored compelling evidence that Johnson, a Black man, did not receive the same constitutionally guaranteed due process afforded to white criminals,” Bosley said. “The death penalty is inherently barbaric, and it should be beneath the dignity of a state to murder a genuinely remorseful person, no matter how heinous their crime.”

Bosley said Parson and Attorney General Eric Schmitt dismissed concerns that racial animus unjustly influenced Johnson’s trial. The 37-year-old received the death penalty in 2008 for the murder of police officer Sgt. William McEntee in 2005 when Johnson was 19. While St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch pursued the death penalty against five men — four Black and one white — who killed police officers during his time in office, only the white defendant’s lawyers received an option to submit mitigating evidence for more lenient sentencing.

Additionally, a study from the University of North Carolina released in September found that during McCulloch’s 27-year tenure, the death sentence would be imposed 3.5 times greater if the victim was white, as compared to cases in which the victim was Black.

Edward E.E. Keenan, a special prosecutor appointed to the case last month by the St. Louis County Circuit Court, determined that “racist prosecution techniques infected Mr. Johnson’s conviction and death sentence. Unless this Court stays the execution, the result in this case will forever have this cloud over it.”

“Johnson’s death at the hands of the state of Missouri despite the broad view that his opportunity at justice was tainted, continues a disturbing trend that our judicial system views Black lives as dispensable,” Bosley said. “Missourians deserve better than the culture of death that permeates what should be our most sacred institutions.”