An updated version of this article appeared in our Dec. 7 issue.

There are currently 19 people living under death sentences in the state of Missouri. One of them is Kevin “KJ” Johnson, who is scheduled to be executed in a few short days on Nov. 29. While it is a well-known fact that the death penalty in this country is rife with error and racial bias, Kevin’s case is a tragic example of how it targets the most marginalized, stigmatized, and traumatized people in our society. 

In 2007, at 19 years old, Kevin Johnson was sentenced to death for the killing of William McEntee, a white Kirkwood police officer. Kevin’s case involved erroneous and unfair court rulings, grossly ineffective counsel, and racist prosecutorial policies. These blatant injustices led St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to appoint a special prosecutor to review Kevin’s case to determine if he was wrongfully convicted. 

And wrongful conviction is exactly what the special prosecutor Edward Keenan found. In a motion to vacate Kevin’s death sentence, Keenan argued that at every stage of the capital prosecution overseen by former St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, race played a decisive factor. Keenan detailed numerous incidents of racial bias, including McCulloch using his peremptory strikes to eliminate Black jurors and ensure a predominately white jury, a clear violation of Batson v. Kentucky: a Supreme Court case that prohibits prosecutors from using peremptory challenges to remove prospective jurors based on race. 

Keenan also found disparate treatment between Kevin and white defendants who had committed similar crimes. For example, Trenton Forster, a white 18-year-old, killed a police officer after posting about his desire to kill cops on social media, indicating premeditation — which was not present in Kevin’s case. However, McCulloch chose not to seek death for Forster, and he was instead sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Based on his findings, Keenan concluded that the State violated the Equal Protection provisions of the Missouri and United States constitutions in prosecuting Kevin.

Though St. Louis County Judge Mary Ott — who is also an adjunct faculty member at WashU Law — denied the motion without a hearing, on Monday, Nov. 28 at 1:30 p.m. the Missouri Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on both Keenan’s and Kevin’s attorney’s motions for a stay of execution. The hearing can be streamed on the Missouri Courts government website.

It is in light of this unjust background that we must view Kevin’s story. On the evening of July 5, 2005, believing police played a role in the death of his 12-year-old brother earlier in the day, Kevin shot and killed Officer McEntee.

McCulloch personally tried the case, an unusual move, perhaps motivated by the fact that his own father was a police officer killed in the line of duty. McCulloch sought the death penalty for Kevin, but was unable to even secure a conviction; the jury hung 10-2, favoring a lesser, non-capital charge. 

Kevin was convicted and sentenced to death at his second trial, despite the numerous injustices against him detailed in the special prosecutor’s motion. Notably, Kevin’s court-appointed lawyers failed to submit mitigating evidence — abundant in Kevin’s case — to the jury. Mitigating evidence can reduce the punishment for the convicted offense and typically addresses the defendant’s background, including a history of mental illness and previous trauma. 

Kevin’s childhood was filled with abuse, neglect, and trauma. He entered the foster system as a toddler, and throughout his childhood spent time in several group homes. A social worker at one of these facilities recently wrote an op-ed about the many ways the foster care system failed Kevin and let him fall through the cracks. Kevin aged out of the child welfare system at the age of 18, despite pleas from his great-grandmother to keep his case open and provide him the help that he desperately needed. But CPS closed his case, a final example of how the very system that is supposed to protect abused and vulnerable children failed Kevin Johnson.

Now 37 years old, Kevin has a 19-year-old daughter Khorry, who recently lost her legal challenge to the Missouri law that imposes an age requirement on witnessing executions. You have to be 21 years of age to witness an execution in Missouri, but ironically, you can be sentenced to death as a teenager. Khorry, who has a newborn son of her own, has been a zealous advocate for her father, her only living parent. In Kevin’s clemency video, Khorry talked about how her dad has been a loving, supportive father, even from behind bars. Through tears, she tried to articulate what it would be like to lose him, but there are no words to properly describe the pain Khorry will feel if her father is executed.

The death penalty is a cruel and barbaric practice. Its racist application only adds to the horror of state-sanctioned murder. According to the ACLU, “People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43% of total executions since 1976 and 55% of those currently awaiting execution.” Despite the fact that white people make up one-half of all murder victims, “80% of all capital cases involve white victims.” When the defendant is Black and the victim is white, this is further exacerbated — according to the Death Penalty Information Center, 301 Black defendants have been executed in cases where the victim was white; whereas only 21 white defendants have been executed in cases where the victim was Black.

The special prosecutor’s conclusion that race played a role in Kevin Johnson’s conviction only confirms what we already knew: the death penalty is racist. To allow his execution to proceed with this knowledge is a disgrace to this state and this country.

17 years ago, Officer McEntee’s family endured an unspeakable tragedy. Killing Kevin Johnson will not erase their pain. It will only inflict that same pain on Kevin and his innocent family. Kevin, by the mere fact of his humanity, deserves to live. Governor Parson has the power to grant clemency to Kevin Johnson and commute his sentence to life without the possibility of parole. Call (573) 751-3222 to ask Governor Parson to spare Kevin’s life.

Death is not justice.

Murray, Myles, and Shahin are members of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an advocacy group that leads clemency campaigns and fights to abolish the death penalty in Missouri.