Missouri completes execution of double murderer over notable clemency requests

As reported in this AP piece, a “Missouri man was executed Tuesday for killing his cousin and her husband nearly two decades ago in an attack that left the couple’s 4-year-old daughter home alone and unharmed.”  Here is more:

Brian Dorsey, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after a single-dose injection of the sedative pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre, Karen Pojmann, communications director for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said in an email.  It was the first execution in Missouri this year after four in 2023, and it came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the inmate’s final appeals….

Dorsey, in a final statement, expressed remorse and sorrow for the killings. “Words cannot hold the just weight of my guilt and shame,” Dorsey said in the written statement.

Dorsey, 52, formerly of Jefferson City, was convicted of killing Sarah and Ben Bonnie on Dec. 23, 2006, at their home near New Bloomfield.  Prosecutors said that earlier that day, Dorsey had called Sarah Bonnie seeking to borrow money to pay two drug dealers who were at his apartment….

Hours before the execution, the Supreme Court turned aside both of Dorsey’s appeals without comment.  His lawyers had urged the high court to step in, saying he had shown good behavior in prison and had been rehabilitated.  They also argued a $12,000 flat fee paid to his two public defenders gave them incentive to hurry through the case.  On their recommendation, Dorsey pleaded guilty despite having no agreement with prosecutors to spare him from the death penalty.

On Monday, Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied a clemency request that included signatures from 72 current and former state corrections officers who urged the governor to commute Dorsey’s sentence to life in prison without parole.  They cited Dorsey’s virtually spotless record of good behavior behind bars.  Parson, a Republican, is a former county sheriff.  He has never granted clemency since taking office in 2018.

Parson, in a statement, said Dorsey “punished his loving family for helping him in a time of need.  His cousins invited him into their home, where he was surrounded by family and friends, then gave him a place to stay.  Dorsey repaid them with cruelty, inhumane violence, and murder.”

Missouri has scheduled its next execution June 11 for inmate David Hosier for his conviction in the 2009 killing of a Jefferson City woman.  Five people have been executed in five different states this year — Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri.