Despite multiple appeals and pushback from criminal justice groups, a Missouri death row inmate will become the first person to die by lethal execution in the United States since the start of the new coronavirus pandemic.
Unless the U.S. Supreme Court issues a last-minute stay, requested by the inmate’s attorney, 64-year-old Walter Barton’s execution will take place at a maximum-security correctional facility in Bonne Terre, Missouri on Tuesday night.
After more than a decade of court proceedings, Barton was convicted of murder in 2006 for the 1991 killing of Gladys Kuehler, an 81-year-old woman who managed a mobile home park in Ozark, Missouri. Barton, who maintains he did not commit the crime, was sentenced to death upon his conviction. The execution date was set this past February by Missouri’s Supreme Court.
Barton’s legal team has made multiple attempts to delay the procedure, arguing his incompetence due to a brain injury and suggesting evidence used to convict him during trials was insufficient in a writ of habeas corpus. The appeal was denied by the Missouri Supreme Court in late April. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes issued a stay that called for an additional 30 days to review Barton’s case, but another ruling by the 8th District Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday vacated the order. The court’s latest ruling said evidence presented by Barton’s lawyers in their appeal “is not ‘new’ and cannot support a claim of actual innocence.”
Responding to arguments regarding Barton’s competence as well as evidence previously used to convict him, the ruling stated, “We vacate the stay of execution and remand with instructions to dismiss Barton’s petition because we see no possibility of success on the merits on either of Barton’s claims.”
Following Monday’s response from the Court of Appeals, the inmate’s attorney requested another stay from the U.S. Supreme Court and intervention from Missouri Governor Mike Parson. In a statement to outlet Missourinet.com on Monday night, a spokesperson from Parson’s office said the governor “fully anticipates carrying out the court order and discharging his duties as prescribed by law, on May 19.”
Several non-profit organizations, including the criminal justice reform coalition The Innocence Project and human rights group Amnesty International, have argued against Barton’s execution. In a statement released on Monday, Kristina Roth, senior program officer of Criminal Justice Programs at Amnesty International USA, said the punishment “demonstrates why the death penalty is far too flawed to ever fix,” referencing Barton’s lengthy trial proceedings and resources put toward his execution by the state amid the pandemic.
“Walter Barton’s execution would be the first in this country during the COVID-19 pandemic,” she wrote. “Rather than focusing all the state’s efforts, energies and resources on keeping everyone healthy and slowing the spread of the virus, authorities in Missouri are engaging in actions that serve only to turn back progress on death penalty abolition.”
