Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Monday will not commute the death sentence of Brian Dorsey, who pleaded guilty to killing Ben and Sarah Bonney in 2006 and is scheduled to be executed Tuesday unless the courts intervene. said.
“While nothing can ever correct the pain Mr. Dorsey has caused others, justice will be served and closure will be achieved by carrying out Mr. Dorsey's sentence in accordance with Missouri law and court orders,” the sheriff said. said Parson, a Republican.
Dorsey's request for clemency was unusual because more than 70 current and former prison officials who met Dorsey behind bars had asked the governor to commute his sentence. They described Mr. Dorsey, 52, as an obedient and polite inmate who earned the respect of police officers and eventually became the prison staff's barber.
“The very concept of 'corrections' implies that we want incarcerated people to change their lives,” said Timothy Lancaster, a former official at the prison where Mr. Dorsey was held in Kansas City. -As stated in a recent column in the Star. “Executing Dorsey would taint the hard work he has done to achieve that goal.”
Mr. Dorsey is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday. He asked state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, to intervene before the scheduled execution.
“Mr. Brian's unprecedented support and irrefutable evidence of redemption are exactly the circumstances for which a pardon was intended,” Dorsey's attorney, Megan Crane, said in a statement. “Despite this truth, allowing Brian to be executed is devastating.”
Some of Dorsey's family supported the request for clemency, including Bonnie's relatives. Other members of Bonney's family also released statements in January saying they hoped the governor would allow the execution to proceed.
“After all the years of pain and suffering, we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,” the relatives said in a statement carried by local news outlets. “Brian will now receive the justice that Sarah and Ben have received for many years.”
Missouri has carried out 97 executions since 1976, ranking it behind Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia and Florida. Parson has not blocked any executions since taking office in 2018, but he has granted pardons and commutations to hundreds of people convicted of minor crimes.
According to Missouri authorities, Mr. Dorsey had been in trouble with drug dealers in December 2006 and had asked his cousin and his wife for help. The Bonnies invited Mr. Dorsey to spend the night at his home near New Bloomfield, Missouri, in the midstate. After the couple went to bed that night, Dorsey grabbed a shotgun and shot each couple, authorities said. Prosecutors also said Mr. Dorsey sexually assaulted Ms. Bonnie, but Mr. Dorsey was never charged with that crime. The sexual assault accusation was presented during Dorsey's sentencing. Mr. Dorsey's lawyers have argued that Mr. Dorsey had no recollection of the sexual assault.
Mr. Dorsey's current lawyers have argued that he was in a drug-induced psychosis at the time of the killing, and he has pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. He was later sentenced to death.
Bonnie, 28, was an auto mechanic who loved fishing, hunting and camping, according to death notices and news articles issued at the time of the killing. Bonnie, 25, was an emergency medical technician who worked for local government, belonged to the Methodist church and rode motorcycles. The couple had a 4-year-old daughter, but she was not physically harmed.
In his clemency application to the governor, Dorsey claimed he received bad advice from public defenders, received a flat fee to take his case, and gave little consideration to potential mitigating factors or plea deals. Mr. Dorsey pleaded guilty without reaching any agreement with prosecutors regarding sentencing. One lawyer who represented Mr. Dorsey at that stage of the case declined to comment, and the other did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Ernesto Londoño Contributed to the report.