That's the title of an article in Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch. LINK
Lawyers for five death row inmates are pressing Missouri to provide more detail about members of its execution team after a Post-Dispatch investigation revealed that one was a convicted stalker.
The lawyers are willing to accept anonymous depositions keeping the executioners' names out of court records, they said.
In papers filed last week in federal court in Kansas City, the lawyers said the executioner's criminal record, detailed in a front-page story Jan. 13, raises questions about his "temperament and suitability" to help with executions.
The newspaper reported that David L. Pinkley, a licensed practical nurse then on probation, worked on Missouri executions and was permitted to join a federal team that executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in Indiana in 2001.
Pinkley, originally charged with felonies for allegedly stalking and damaging the property of a man who had a relationship with his estranged wife, pleaded no contest to misdemeanors and received a suspended imposition of sentence. That cleared his record once he served two years on probation.
State and federal prison officials knew this background, according to internal Missouri Division of Probation and Parole memos obtained by the paper.
Those circumstances raise questions about the state's screening procedures and desire to have qualified executioners, claimed lawyers for convicted killers Reginald Clemons, Richard Clay, Jeffrey Ferguson, Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor.
And:
In interviews after the Post-Dispatch story, three St. Louis-area legislators on a committee that oversees the Department of Corrections criticized the agency for letting a probationer work at executions.
The legislators, Sen. Maida Coleman, D-St. Louis; Sen. Harry Kennedy, D-St. Louis; and Rep. Belinda Harris, D-Hillsboro, said they would raise questions within the committee, which has the authority to investigate the department and compel testimony from officials.
But the chairman of the committee said he did not think there would be any official inquiry.
"If I would have proof that maybe the board of nursing took disciplinary action on this person, I think it might be a different situation," said Rep. Mark Bruns, R-Jefferson City. "Given the limited information I have on it right now, I don't think it would be prudent for the committee to launch an investigation into it."
Earlier coverage is here.
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