Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Daughter barred from father’s execution
ST. LOUIS — A federal judge has denied a request from a 19-year-old woman to let her watch her father’s death by injection, upholding a Missouri law that bars anyone younger than 21 from witnessing an execution.
Kevin Johnson is set to be executed Tuesday for killing Kirkwood, Mo., police officer William McEntee in 2005. Johnson’s lawyers have appeals pending.
His daughter, Khorry Ramey, had sought to attend the execution, and the American Civil Liberties Union had filed an emergency motion with a federal court in Kansas City. The ACLU argued the age requirement serves no safety purpose and violates Ramey’s constitutional rights.
But U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes ruled late Friday that Ramey’s constitutional rights would not be violated, though he acknowledged emotional harm.
“I’m heartbroken that I won’t be able to be with my dad in his last moments,” Ramey said. “My dad is the most important person in my life. He has been there for me my whole life, even though he’s been incarcerated.”
Ramey said she was praying that Gov. Michael Parson would grant her father clemency. Johnson’s lawyers don’t challenge his guilt but claim racism played a role in the decision to seek the death penalty as well as the jury’s decision. Johnson is Black and McEntee was white.
Johnson’s lawyers also have asked the courts to intervene because of a history of mental illness and his age; he was 19 at the time of the crime.
The Missouri attorney general’s office argued there were no grounds for intervention: “The surviving victims of Johnson’s crimes have waited long enough for justice, and every day longer that they must wait is a day they are denied the chance to finally make peace with their loss.”