"Missouri may see record number of executions in 2014," is by Jim Salter of Associated Press. It's via the Springfield News-Leader.
Missouri is on pace for a record number of executions in 2014, with two more inmates on the verge of getting their execution dates.
The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday issued show cause orders in the cases of Leon Taylor and Michael Worthington. The orders give attorneys for the two men until April 14 to show why an execution date should not be set.
Missouri executed two men late last year and has already put to death two other convicted killers in the first two months of 2014 — Herbert Smulls in January and Michael Taylor in February.
And:
Missouri’s highest number of executions in a year was nine in 1999. The state executed eight men in 1938 and seven in 2001.
MissouriNet posts, "Death penalty repeal gets a little attention," by Bob Priddy. There is audio at the link.
The vaguely-named Senate Progress and Development Committee, set up a few years ago to give a minority party member a committee to chair. has taken testimony on a Democratic issue unlikely to go anywhere in the Republican-dominated General Assembly. Senator Gina Walsh of St. Louis wants to abolish the death penalty, which she calls “one of society’s most polarizing topics.. Witnesses for her bill are familiar anti-death penalty organizations: Missourians Against the Death Penalty, the American Civil Liberties Union, Missouri Association for Social Welfare, and the Missouri Catholic Conference–represented by lobbyist Rita Linhardt, who says about ten percent of those who have been sentenced to death are later exonerated, including a man last week, the 144th person facing execution who is now free.
Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link.
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