by Br. Daryl Charron, C.PP.S.
Missouri death row inmate, Allen Nicklasson, was granted a stay of execution this week by a 3-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over concerns about his legal representation at trial and sentencing. Missouri Attorney General, Chris Koster, appealed this stay to the U.S. Supreme Court as he said in his appeal, “In the last nineteen years, Nicklasson has filed appeals or challenges to his convictions numerous times in 5 different courts and the time for enforcement of Missouri’s criminal judgment against him is long, long overdue.” The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals stay and Nicklasson is scheduled to die by injection for the 1994 murder of businessman Richard Drummond. Drummond was fatally shot after stopping to help when a car carrying Nicklasson stalled along Interstate 70 in central Missouri. Nicklasson declined interview requests this week, but in a 2009 interview with the Associated Press, he recalled a childhood of abuse and mental illness. Missouri had been preparing for its 2nd execution in three weeks after going nearly 3 years without an execution. Racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin was executed Nov. 20th marking the 1st execution in Missouri using a single drug, pentobarbital. The state previously used a 3-drug method of executions, but changed protocols after drugmakers stopped selling the lethal drugs to prisons and corrections departments. The pentobarbital used in Missouri executions comes from an undisclosed compounding pharmacy. The Missouri Department of Corrections declines to say who makes the drug, or where. Governor Jay Nixon received a petition for clemency from Allen Nicklasson, but after careful deliberation denied this petition. Nicklasson was executed at about 11pm on Wednesday, Dec. 11th. This information comes to you courtesy of Rita Linhardt, Chair of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.