KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas Citians came out in protest Tuesday ahead of the impending execution of Carman Deck, a 56-year-old man convicted of murdering two people in eastern Missouri who died by lethal injection at a state prison.
Roughly a dozen gathered at the four corners of Troost Avenue and 39th Street for a demonstration organized by Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. It was one of several events across the state led by the group meant to bring awareness to Deck’s death.
Deck was executed by the state Tuesday evening in Bonne Terre at 6:10 p.m. Central time, according to a news release from the Missouri Department of Corrections.
“We hope that the people that drive by see our shirts, see our signs and notice that this is still going on. The state of Missouri is still killing people. And in fact, they’re killing people in (our) name,” said Bob Ronan, the leader of the organization’s Kansas City chapter.
Deck was ordered by the Missouri Supreme Court to die by lethal injection for the 1996 slayings of James and Zelma Long during a robbery in De Soto. On Monday, Gov. Mike Parson denied a plea for clemency — Deck’s last viable route to stave off the execution — saying the state would carry out the court’s order and “deliver justice.”
“Mr. Deck has received due process, and three separate juries of his peers have recommended sentences of death for the brutal murders he committed,” Parson said in a statement.
Deck, who confessed to the killings, was convicted in 1998. He has been sentenced to death three times since, but each time that sentence was overturned.
In 2020, the Missouri Supreme Court threw out his death sentence due to ineffective council from Deck’s lawyers. His second death sentence was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 because he had been shackled in front of the sentencing jury.
He was sentenced to death a third time in 2008. A U.S. district judge ruled in 2017 that the sentencing phase was “fundamentally unfair” because evidence available in the first two sentencing phases arguing for a sentence other than death was unavailable due to the decade of delays.
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reinstated the death penalty in 2020. Earlier this year, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered that Deck’s sentence be carried out during a 24-hour period beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
On Tuesday evening, among those demonstrating in Kansas City was Jeanne Bates, 75, of Johnson County. After reading a book about wrongful incarcerations, she was inspired to demonstrate and raise awareness of her long-held belief that the death penalty is unjust.
“It doesn’t serve justice. It’s not a humane thing. It doesn’t serve anybody,” Bates said.
Sue Robb, 62, of Blue Springs, a pastoral associate with St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, brought a sign with Deck’s photograph and handwritten message: “When will we learn? LIFE is Sacred.”
“What we are called to do is raise awareness,” Robb said. “There’s so much in our society that comes at us. We’re overwhelmed by information. But I think when lives are at stake, whether they be children’s lives, migrants’ lives or Ukrainian lives, we need to educate ourselves.”
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The Star’s Robert A. Cronkleton contributed to this report.
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