ST. LOUIS (AP) – The desperation is palpable in the voices crying out for Brian Dorsey’s life to be spared from Missouri’s executioner. From former judges to prison guards, an unlikely coalition has mobilized in these final hours to try to save the 52-year-old death row inmate convicted of a sickening double murder nearly 20 years ago.
But their raised voices pleading for clemency based on Dorsey’s years of rehabilitation and claims of injustice appear to be falling on deaf ears. With less than a day until his scheduled execution by lethal injection Tuesday evening, Missouri’s governor has already denied Dorsey’s plea for mercy.
Now, it’s down to a handful of pending appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court in this controversial capital punishment case that has ripped open simmering divides. On one side: advocates insisting the reformed Dorsey has atoned and doesn’t deserve to die. On the other: a belief that even redeemed criminals should never escape the ultimate punishment for the utmost of crimes.
“This is about much more than just Brian Dorsey’s life – it’s about the very principles and humanity of our justice system itself,” said Megan Crane, one of Dorsey’s attorneys. “If we cannot find mercy and recognize transformation in cases like this, then we have lost our moral way as a society.”
But the horrific details of the December 2006 murders that sent Dorsey to death row still haunt. Prosecutors say he callously gunned down his own cousin, Sarah Bonnie, and her husband Ben in their home after they had gone to bed. Dorsey then sexually assaulted Sarah’s lifeless body in a final act of depraved violence.
The gruesome crime scene was discovered by Sarah’s parents the next morning when they arrived to find the couple’s 4-year-old daughter sitting on the couch, watching TV alone. “My mommy won’t wake up,” the little girl told her grandparents.
Three days later, Dorsey surrendered to police, launching a twisting legal odyssey defined by potentially compromised public defenders, questions of past drug-induced psychosis, and claims of inhumane execution methods ahead of his scheduled killing. The case drew its first jolt of national attention this week after his clemency petition revealed an outpouring of support from an unexpected source – the very corrections officers entrusted with Dorsey’s imprisonment.
“The Brian I have known for years could not hurt anyone,” wrote one anonymous officer advocating for Dorsey’s life to be spared. “The Brian I know does not deserve to be executed.”
Dozens of guards have vouched for the convicted murderer’s profound rehabilitation over nearly two decades on death row. They describe Dorsey as a remorseful man utterly transformed from the reckless, drug-addicted young offender who committed the senseless slayings in 2006.
It’s a portrait of redemption that has swayed other influential voices like former Missouri Supreme Court Justice Michael Wolff. After sitting on the court that rejected one of Dorsey’s initial appeals in 2009, Wolff now says he got it wrong.
“Brian has spent every day of his time in prison trying to make amends for his crime, and dozens of correctional officers have attested to his remorse, transformation, and commitment to service,” Wolff wrote to the governor in arguing for Dorsey’s death sentence to be commuted to life behind bars.
But Gov. Mike Parson was unmoved, silently denying the clemency petition on Monday without explanation. As a former sheriff and staunch supporter of capital punishment during his political career, the decision was perhaps inevitable from the Republican. Still, Dorsey’s advocates insist the governor turned a blind eye to clear evidence of injustice and reformation.
“Governor Parson has chosen to ignore the wealth of information before him showing that Brian Dorsey is uniquely deserving of mercy,” Crane said.
With clemency off the table and the clock ticking towards the 6 p.m. execution at Missouri’s maximum security prison, Dorsey’s last remaining longshot is the U.S. Supreme Court. A pair of pending appeals before the high court take aim at separate aspects of his conviction and sentence.
One appeal focuses on Dorsey’s alleged wrongful representation at his original trial nearly 20 years ago. His state public defenders at the time were working under a flat $12,000 fee – an inherent conflict of interest giving them no financial motivation to invest serious time or resources into his defense, the appeal claims.
“Missouri Public Defenders now do not use the flat fee for defense in recognition of the professional standard that such an arrangement gives the attorney an inherent financial conflict of interest,” Wolff wrote.
On the advice of those same underfunded attorneys, Dorsey blindly pleaded guilty without any assurances from prosecutors he would be spared execution, his current lawyers say. It’s just one in a series of injustices that should invalidate the death penalty in this case, they argue.
Dorsey’s other remaining legal challenge takes aim at Missouri’s lethal injection protocol itself and whether it could subject the physically ailing inmate to unconstitutional cruelty. As an obese, diabetic former IV drug user at high risk for compromised veins, Dorsey could be poked, prodded and sliced open without anesthesia as execution staff desperately try to establish an IV line for the fatal drugs.
In a federal lawsuit settled over the weekend, the state agreed to unspecified additional measures to try to limit such excessive pain and suffering for Dorsey during the execution process. However, it’s unclear if that could include the option of general anesthesia which Missouri has refused to use even as other states have revised their protocols in response to bungled executions with condemned inmates crying out in anguish.
So with the legal stakes rising and mere hours remaining in the life of Brian Dorsey, all eyes are on the nine robed justices in Washington D.C. If they decline to intervene with a stay of execution or take up his appeals, Missouri will proceed with its 92nd execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1989.
For the Bonnie family it would finally deliver a long-awaited finality in the cruelest of legal cases – one that robbed two parents of their lives and scarred the childhood innocence of their young daughter in 2006. But for Dorsey’s backers, it would be an American injustice without redemption, a legal system rejecting undeniable evidence of rehabilitation and mercy in favor of perpetuating a cycle of violence.
It’s a divide with the highest of stakes in these waning execution hours – one man’s life hanging in the balance, but much larger unanswered questions about justice, clemency and human rights looming over America’s death rows.
