Missouri Gov. Mike Parson rejected death-penalty clemency for Brian Dorsey, a 52-year-old man convicted in the December 2006 double-murder of his cousin and her husband, reports the Washington Post. This is despite Dorsey's legal team and supporters from prison arguing that he was rehabilitated. Dorsey is scheduled to be executed Tuesday at 6 p.m. local time.
His attorneys say he is "uniquely deserving of mercy" because of the depth of his rehabilitation. Dorsey has received written support from more than 70 prison staff staff members saying he should not be executed due to his "pristine" disciplinary record during his 17 years on death row. When Dorsey shot and killed a couple two days before Christmas in 2006, he was in a drug induced "psychotic state," something his attorneys at the time did not disclose. He stole some items to pay his drug debt, since he was self-medicating with cocaine for depression, but immediately turned himself in when the police were looking for him. Dorsey’s current attorneys argued that their client received ineffective counsel at his trial, saying they obtained "nothing for for Mr. Dorsey in exchange for his guilty plea." An open question in this case is whether the Eighth Amendment protects from execution people who have been rehabilitated, a question that the Supreme Court will decide.