The 16th Execution of 2023
Johnny Johnson, 45, was sentenced to die for murdering
6-year-old Casey Williamson after abducting and trying to rape her, court
records show. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson denied a clemency request on July 31, 2023,
calling the crime “one of the most horrific” ever to cross his desk, reported CNN.
Johnson was put to death on August 1, 2023 by lethal
injection, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a CNN affiliate. He was pronounced
dead at 6:33 p.m. CT, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections
confirmed to CNN.
He was the fourth inmate executed this year in
Missouri and the 16th across the United States, according to the
Death Penalty Information Center.
Johnson apologized to his victim’s family in a final
statement released by corrections officials: “God Bless(.) Sorry to the people
and family I hurt,” he wrote.
Casey’s family did not make a statement after
Johnson’s execution, according to the Post-Dispatch. Family members had mixed
feelings about the execution, the paper reported, but Casey’s mother was ready
to put it behind her.
“I’ve been looking forward to putting this part of it
to rest,” Angie Wideman said last week. CNN has reached out to her.
Johnson’s lethal injection was carried out after the
US Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution, with the three
liberal justices dissenting.
“The Court today paves the way to execute a man with
documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his
competency to be executed,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent,
citing in part Ford v. Wainwright, in which the court ruled the Eighth
Amendment prohibits the execution of a person who can’t understand what’s
happening. Also dissenting were Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
A neuropsychiatrist who evaluated Johnson in February
determined he long had “suffered from severe mental illness,” including
schizophrenia, according to the inmate’s petition for a writ of certiorari.
Johnson understood he was sentenced to die for murdering a child, the doctor found, but he lacked a “rational understanding of the reasons for his execution” and believed that “Satan is using the State of Missouri to execute (him) to bring about the end of the world,” the petition said. Ultimately, the doctor found Johnson incompetent to be executed.
The state opposed Johnson’s petition, citing the
findings of his prison’s head of mental health, who reported Johnson had never
“expressed these kinds of hallucinations or delusional beliefs.”
Sotomayor wrote the Supreme Court of Missouri and the
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals both had erred in denying Johnson the
opportunity to argue his case.
The state Supreme Court first denied Johnson’s request
for a competency hearing because it found he had not demonstrated the threshold
showing of insanity required; a federal district court then denied relief.
Then, a three-judge panel of the Eight Circuit Court
issued Johnson a stay and certificate of appealability, giving him the chance
to have his case heard. But the full Eighth Circuit subsequently vacated the
stay and declined to issue the certificate.
Johnson “deserves a hearing where a court can finally
determine whether his execution violates the Eight Amendment,” Sotomayor wrote
in her dissent. “Instead, this Court rushes to finality, bypassing fundamental
procedural and substantive protections.”
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