The state of Missouri is preparing to execute Tuesday a man sentenced to death three times for a double murder committed more than a quarter of a century ago. Carman Deck, 56, is due to receive a lethal injection around 6:00 p.m. (01:00 GMT Wednesday) in the Bonne Terre penitentiary, in the center of the United States. On Monday, Missouri Governor Mike Parson refused to grant him clemency and commute his sentence to life imprisonment, as demanded by local activists.
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“Carman Deck was able to enforce his rights and three separate juries recommended death sentences for the brutal murders he committed,” said the elected Republican in a press release. The Supreme Court of the United States also rejected on Monday a last appeal by his lawyers and he should be the 5th convict executed in the United States since January 1. In 1996, Carman Deck killed an elderly couple, James and Zelda Long, in suburban St. Louis. He always admitted his responsibility for the crime.
According to the newspaper Kansas City Star, whose editorial writers pleaded for his sentence to be commuted, the Missouri Supreme Court in 2002 overturned the verdict of a first trial, on the grounds that his lawyers had poorly defended him. In particular, they had failed to expose his difficult childhood in foster families. The Supreme Court of the United States had invalidated in 2005 a second lawsuit, where it had been presented with hindrances with the feet, the wrists and the abdomen likely to influence the perception of the jurors.
In 2008, he received the death penalty in a third trial, but the sentence was overturned in 2017 by a federal judge, on the grounds that all available evidence had not been presented to jurors. An appeals court, however, restored the decision in 2020, a decision later upheld by the state Supreme Court.