The Missouri Supreme Court has set a November execution date for Kevin Johnson, who killed a Kirkwood police sergeant 17 years ago.
Johnson is scheduled to die by injection Nov. 29 at the state prison in Bonne Terre. Johnson’s death warrant will be good for a 24-hour period beginning at 6 p.m. that day.
“It’s about time,†Robert McCulloch, who prosecuted Johnson, said on Thursday. He said he plans to attend the execution in person.
Johnson, 36, was convicted by a ºüÀêÊÓƵ County jury of killing Kirkwood police Sgt. William McEntee on July 5, 2005. The Missouri Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it had issued the warrant of execution for Johnson.
Advocates for Johnson claim he was sent to death row by a racially biased prosecution, bent on convicting a Black man for killing a white cop. They are hoping to win Johnson clemency.
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McEntee was on patrol in Kirkwood’s Meacham Park neighborhood on the day he was gunned down on Alsobrook Street. McEntee was 43 years old. He was the father of three and was on the force for nearly 20 years.
McEntee was in his car talking to a 13-year-old boy about a fireworks disturbance when Johnson approached the passenger’s side of the car, fired several shots and walked away.
The wounded McEntee drove off but crashed about 200 feet away. With help from neighbors, while others called 911, McEntee was able to get out of the car. He was on his hands and knees when Johnson walked up and shot him twice more — in the back and in the back of the head. In all, McEntee was hit seven times.
Officials said Johnson, who was 19, ambushed McEntee in anger because he felt police officers hadn’t done enough to help when his brother collapsed and died of a congenital heart condition earlier that day.
Johnson had two murder trials, the first ending in a hung jury. He testified at both trials and said he was in a trance-like state when he fired the gun.
At Johnson’s second trial, which ended in conviction in 2007, defense attorney Karen Kraft told the jury they should consider Johnson’s history of abuse and neglect as a child when considering a sentence.
Kraft noted that Johnson’s half-brother, Joseph “Bam Bam†Long, 12, had died earlier on the day McEntee was slain. She offered three “mitigating factors†under Missouri law — Johnson’s age, his lack of significant criminal history and the fact that he was under extreme emotional or mental distress at the time of the murder.
“The death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst,†Kraft said. “With all due respect to the McEntee family, this is not one of those cases.â€
McCulloch, the former county prosecutor, had urged jurors to ignore arguments about Johnson’s troubled upbringing.
“They want you to think that because he had a lousy childhood that he should not have to face the appropriate punishment,†McCulloch said at trial. “At some point, he has to be held accountable for what he did. A death sentence is justice for McEntee.â€
Johnson’s appeals through the years argued that he didn’t get a fair trial. Lawyers on appeal have focused on a variety of issues.
They argued that the shackles hidden under his clothes made a noise so the jury knew he was shackled. Appellate lawyers contested that numerous police officers were allowed to gather in the courtroom and the hallway, arguing it sent a signal to jurors to convict Johnson. They argued that Johnson’s trial lawyers failed to call witnesses who would have testified that Johnson had “acute stress disorder†and lacked the ability to deliberate.
Courts have rejected those arguments.
One of Johnson’s current lawyers, Shawn Nolan, said in a release Thursday that Johnson is facing execution “as a result of racially biased prosecution tactics.â€
McCulloch countered by saying Johnson ended up on death row “because of a brutal, vicious, unprovoked assassination of a police officer.â€
“That’s why he was sentenced to death,†McCulloch said. “Nothing to do with his race, my race, anybody’s race.â€
Wesley Bell is the current prosecuting attorney for ºüÀêÊÓƵ County. He unseated McCulloch in the 2018 election. Bell has pledged to never seek the death penalty. When he campaigned against McCulloch, Bell called the death penalty expensive, ineffective at deterrence and racially biased.
Johnson has an application pending before the in Bell’s office to review Johnson’s claims of racial bias during McCulloch’s tenure. Bell’s office has a conflict because someone in the office worked on Johnson’s case, so Bell is trying to find a special prosecutor to handle the investigation, said Rebecca Woodman, a lawyer with Johnson’s legal team in Kansas City. She declined to release a copy of the application to the Post-Dispatch.
Woodman was irked that the Missouri Supreme Court set an execution date without giving the unit a chance to investigate. “It would be unconscionable,†she said, to execute Johnson without a thorough investigation of his claims.
A spokesman for Bell’s office said Thursday, “This case preceded our administration. We have no comment.â€
Advocates for Johnson claim that McCulloch’s record as prosecutor “shows a troubling pattern of racial bias†in administering the death penalty. They claim that his office sought the death penalty more often when the victim was a white person.
McCulloch, now retired, scoffed at suggestions that his office had a racial bias. In an interview with the Post-Dispatch, McCulloch said his office weighed each homicide case to determine if it merited the death penalty. McCulloch said that review wasn’t based on the race of the victim or suspect.
“It’s nonsense,†McCulloch added, “that they’ve come up with trying to make the death penalty a race issue. It’s just something to distract people from that.â€
In addition, McCulloch said state and federal courts have looked at claims of racial bias during jury selection. Johnson’s side has claimed that McCulloch used a peremptory challenge to dismiss a potential juror based solely on her race.
“Every court at every level, state and federal, has looked at that component and decided that race didn’t play any part in the case,†McCulloch said.
Johnson’s legal team is trying to win executive clemency for Johnson. Johnson’s advocates include Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. The group has collected about 2,600 signatures in the last month on a petition asking for Gov. Mike Parson to commute Johnson’s death sentence to life without parole.
“We’re not asking to open the (prison) doors, we’re just asking for him to live out the rest of his natural life,†said Elyse Max, executive director of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Missouri last carried out an execution earlier this year. Carman Deck, 56, was put to death in May for killing a couple in their home near De Soto in 1996.
Kim Bell covers breaking news for and the ºüÀêÊÓƵ. She can be reached at kbell@post-dispatch.com