Missouri Governor Says Execution Will Proceed After Jurors Waver on Death Sentence

The News

Gov. Mike Parson of Missouri said on Monday that he would not intervene to stop the execution of Michael Tisius, a 42-year-old who murdered two jail guards in 2000.

In a clemency petition sent to Mr. Parson last month, several jurors who had voted to sentence Mr. Tisius to death said they now believe life imprisonment was appropriate. Mr. Tisius’s lawyers had also argued that another juror from the sentencing trial was unable to read, a requirement under Missouri law for jury service.

“Missouri’s judicial system provided Mr. Tisius with due process and fair proceedings for his brutal murders of two Randolph County jail guards,” Mr. Parson said in a statement, adding, “The State of Missouri will carry out Mr. Tisius’s sentences according to the court’s order and deliver justice.”

Mr. Parson, a Republican, said that Mr. Tisius’s case “received fair and careful review at each step in the judicial process.”

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for Mr. Tisius, rejecting his lawyers’ argument that his age at the time of the crime, 19, should spare him from the death penalty. Mr. Tisius’s legal appeals have been exhausted.

That left the possibility that Mr. Parson would step in and halt the execution. A former sheriff, Mr. Parson was seen as unlikely to commute the sentence. For weeks, organizations and institutions — including the American Bar Association, the Missouri State Public Defenders, the European Union and the Catholic Church — lobbied him, arguing for clemency.

Of the jury that had voted to sentence Mr. Tisius to death in 2010, six jurors, including two alternates, have said in sworn affidavits included in the clemency petition that they would be supportive or would not object if Mr. Parson stepped in to commute the sentence to life imprisonment, rather than death.